In Which the Plot Founders Under the Weight of the Tropes

The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson

When I read a mystery novel, I generally find myself comparing it to some of my favorite thrillers in the genre. Come on, you do the same thing. Maybe a character sounds familiar, perhaps the setting rings a bell, heaven forbid that the plot follows something I’ve already devoured. The first novel in a series can be critical, because if you don’t like the protagonist, it’s hard for you to come back for another helping. And then again there can be other, structural problems… …which is what happened with the first novel in Alan Jacobson’s Karen Vail series, The 7th Victim. You’d like to identify with Vail, a hard-charging FBI profiler, but Jacobson makes it pretty hard. Let’s get to the plot, and then we’ll explain.

Karen Vail’s life is a mess: she’d just split from her soon-to-be ex-husband when it dawned on her that her mother was slipping quickly into dementia. On top of that, a serial killer is plying his trade in her stomping grounds of the D. C> area. The “Dead Eyes Killer” has already killed two (Vail insists it’s three), butchering the remains of pretty dark-haired women and driving steak knives into their eyes. Ick. And then there were three (four by Vail’s count).
Complicating Vail’s life are her attraction to one of the members of her task force, the assault charges looming over her head from an altercation with her ex, and the failure of her boss to recognize her obvious brilliance. What can go wrong, has – and will.

Make no mistake, however, Karen will “preVAIL.” But be prepared for a long list of tropes to assault your senses along the way…

Alan Jacobson isn’t a virgin, having written a series of SEAL-type thrillers that, at a glance, appear to be military thrillers crossed with Indiana Jones. I’ll admit, I’ve only read the synopses. That’s probably all I will read, since they’re all rather old. The first novel in this series was, for what it’s worth, published in 2008, which is why the otherwise stylish Vail sports a BlackBerry instead of an iPhone (she’ll never have an Android…).

While the action moves at a reasonable pace, the plot is at best average. There are the by-now expected flashbacks to the killer’s childhood and the psychological trauma that created a serial killer. Jacobson’s problem, at least for this reader, is that the guy just can’t resist throwing in yet another trope. By my uncertain count, readers were treated to:

[SPOILER ALERT]

• A women who's assumed to be “weak” by all her colleagues
• A heroine who’s tough as nails (and ferocious in the sack)
• A stereotypical “heroine rescued from the villain by her buds” plot
• A “she’s not really my mother” twist
• Dissociative Identity Disorder (aka multiple personalities)
• An evil twin (I kid you not!)

That’s not to mention Vail’s adolescent son being in a coma for half the book. In "Happy Days" parlance, Jacobson jumped the shark in the first episode!

No, this one didn’t take much effort or thought to plot out. It also doesn’t take much effort to give it a whopping two stars. Too bad Jacobson didn’t leave any other disasters to befall Vail: he used them all up on the first installment!

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