Diane Capri
Biography
Diane Capri
Diane Capri’s life was humming along on all cylinders. Born in Alabama, she grew up in a small German-American farming town north of Detroit, where she lived a book-filled childhood and followed most of life’s rules. She graduated from Wayne Law School cum laude and served as an editor of the Wayne Law Review. Ranked in the top 1% of lawyers nationwide, she practiced law throughout the U.S., representing clients from around the world.
Always an insatiable reader with a keen interest in crime fiction, particularly mystery and suspense, Diane spent the travel years on airplanes and in hotel rooms. She put the time to good use by learning fiction craft when not practicing law, but her friends pointed out that her fiction files contained only desire and incomplete projects. Too true. While she published millions of words during her legal career, Diane jokes, “Most of them were nonfiction.”
But in 1995, one shocking phone call destroyed her thriving practice. Diane’s largest client filed for bankruptcy protection, blasting a gaping hole in her by-the-book life. The hours to write what she loved instead of what paid the bills stretched endlessly before her. She figured it was now or never.
Diane challenged herself to complete DUE JUSTICE in the style of stories she loved to read. She’d been through Travis McGee’s adventures a dozen times, never tiring of his exploits. She’d moved to Florida and adored everything about the Sunshine State.
No surprise, then, that her first novel and all Diane’s books that followed are suspenseful Florida mysteries. Rather than a strapping, muscular boat-bum like McGee, Diane’s heroes are Wilhelmina Carson, Jennifer Lane and Jess Kimball, women who deliver true justice along with a splash of humor. The books quickly found a publisher, an audience and acclaim as well, under the author name M. Diane Vogt. She was humming along on all cylinders again when her publisher failed, bankruptcy followed, and a legal quagmire swallowed her books and her career --- again. Quick! More vodka!
Diane had long been active in Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America and other writing organizations. After her publisher’s bankruptcy, while she was writing the new Jess Kimball novel, FATAL DISTRACTION, she was invited to join International Thriller Writers at its inception and shortly thereafter became a member of the board along with her friend, the #1 international bestselling author Lee Child.
At a cocktail party in New York in 2009, Lee and Diane discussed a great question: Where is Jack Reacher? The answer was unknown, which inspired Diane to write a series of suspense novels answering the inquiry with Lee’s blessing. The first of those novels is DON'T KNOW JACK, introducing FBI Special Agents Kim Otto and Carlos Gaspar. The short story singles "Jack in a Box" and "Jack and Kill" quickly followed, allowing readers to learn even more about Otto and Gaspar. The second novel in the series opened to rave reader reviews on September 15, 2013.
Diane is a snowbird, dividing her time between homes in Northern Michigan and Florida. She lives in perpetual summer. She’s married and loves dogs, writing, sunshine, warm temperatures, gourmet food, red wine, convertible cars and her very large extended family. And, of course, she will always love sharing adventures with Willa Carson, Jenny Lane and Jess Kimball, and reading Travis McGee. But these days, she’s busy on The Hunt for Reacher. Want to come along?
Diane Capri
