Non-fiction
With fellow investigative journalist William J. Kelly, Jacobs wrote the social history Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles (2008), which Booklist praised as “remarkably entertaining and informative,” As a follow-up, Jacobs and Kelly wrote The People’s Republic of Chemicals (2014), which Kirkus called "hard-hitting" and "[a] scathing denunciation of how America outsourced its industrial capacity to China, a package that included catastrophic pollution."
His dark comedy, true crime book, The Ascension of Jerry (2012), was about a murder trial in 1979 Los Angeles. He also wrote the biography Strange As It Seems: The Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler (2016), which Publishers Weekly called “exceptional” storytelling and a “peculiar page turner."
Fiction
Jacobs's debut novel, Arroyo (2019), is a work of historical fiction set around construction of Pasadena’s mysterious Colorado Street Bridge in 1913. It was a Los Angeles Times and Southern California Independent Booksellers Association bestseller.
Booklist magazine called Arroyo a "a riveting and enjoyable look at how local myths are constructed, and a vivid depiction of a time and a place that felt full of possibilities.” Library Journal said that Jacobs "handles the historical material superbly, skillfully relating the complicated and tragic story of the" Colorado Street Bridge's "construction while convincingly depicting a variety of famous historical figures.”
