by Diane Capri
RUSSELL DENTON SETTLED HIMSELF deeper into his leather wing chair and ignored his fatigue. Outside, Tampa’s daily summer thunderstorm raged. Oblivious to the relentless pounding of the monsoon-like rain, the savvy, self-made billionaire focused yet again on Jennifer Lane’s short dossier, and noted little with which he was able to find fault. At least, nothing that he was capable of changing. He checked the information he’d already memorized, comforting himself with its familiarity.
She was young but smart. University of Florida law graduate five years ago. Summa cum laude—if not from an Ivy League school. And she craved approval. Excellent. He liked insecure overachievers. He understood them well.
The next notation concerned him the most. Jennifer Lane suffered from debilitating migraines for which she took prescription medication. Her condition was well controlled, he’d been assured. Not that he believed.
Russell examined the candid photos. Jennifer wasn’t beautiful, although the resemblance to the other woman was clear if you knew what to look for. A certain tilt to the nose; crinkles around her eyes; brown, curly hair. Those physical traits were the same. The dimple in her chin seemed identical. Jennifer was well groomed, but plain. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary. The other one had been something special. Flashy. Irresistible. Maybe Jennifer’s ordinariness would mask the similarities. He hoped.
A small frown formed between his eyes as Russell reread the next line on the page. Single. Too bad. He’d made that mistake once before. Married would be better.
Make the best of it. Single. No husband or children to distract her. And this one was nothing like the other. Not a party girl.
He stared again at the pictures. Definitely not glamorous. Not his nephew’s type at all. Single could be all right this time.
It had to be.
Russell forced his brow to relax and the frown faded slightly. He nodded to himself. Yes, Jennifer Lane looked good to him on paper. Besides, he’d already rejected all of the other options and he didn’t have the luxury of starting over, even if Jennifer wasn’t perfect.
Russell closed the slim yellow folder and placed it carefully on the coffee table in front of his chair. Then he picked up the blue folder and sat back to review once more the memorized dossier on Stuart Barnett.
Russell’s memory was his great ally. He memorized everything. Lately, though, he’d noticed his own increased mental confusion. He memorized material but couldn’t recall it quickly when he needed to.
Forced himself to concentrate. Rain pelted the windows of the high-rise as strong wind gusts rattled the panes, but Russell didn’t notice the weather outside.
Stuart Barnett was older than Jennifer, of course. Fifty. Experienced. The black sheep at a good enough law firm. Despite strong talent, Barnett was underappreciated by his partners and had been passed over for promotion several times. He was bitter and had something to prove. Excellent.
The frown returned to Russell’s face as he reread the facts. He picked up the four-color driver’s license photo and another picture the investigator had collected.
Barnett was too good-looking a man, his wife was too wealthy. The combination meant the lawyer wouldn’t be easy to control. A definite problem. One that couldn’t be helped.
Russell tapped the blue folder against his knee. He reexamined his plan.
The package could work perfectly. Jennifer the face; Barnett the experience. Would it, though?
Russell could find better legal talent, but as a team the two of them might do the job.
Still, Russell’s intuition was almost as essential to him as his memory. And something about this decision nagged him, just didn’t feel quite right.
If his other efforts were unsuccessful, everything would depend on Lane and Barnett’s success. Denton Bio-Medical was the only thing Russell truly cared about—besides his nephew. He’d worked too hard, for too long, to lose everything now.
Lane and Barnett. Could they do it? If he was wrong—no, he wouldn’t even consider that. He pushed the thought away. He needed to be certain.
Russell tested his own decisions in the way a highly successful man surrounded by sycophants must: proceed objectively. He’d made his own way in the world since he was sixteen. He’d learned the hard way to rely only on himself.
Now was not the time for a crisis of confidence.
Russell felt hot in the heavily air-conditioned room. Ignored his rising fever. Replaced the blue folder on the table next to the yellow one. Looked straight ahead, facing the hidden camera behind the large mirror, as if he could see through to the camera’s lens and its operator in the other room. At least he would have an accurate tape. He could examine it later. He would be able to reassure himself objectively. Or develop alternatives.
An exceptionally loud crack of thunder snapped Russell back to full attention. Raised his glass of iced tea in a toast to Tyler, the unseen camera man, and then sipped. Checked the time.
“Exactly four o’clock. We’re ready,” he said, testing the microphone again.
“Are you tired?” Tyler asked via the small, invisible microphone inside Russell’s ear.
“A luxury I can’t afford,” Russell insisted.
“Have you eaten today?”
“No appetite.” Russell heard the disapproving silence. Lane and Barnett would be prompt, regardless of the weather. Everything about them in the recorded dossiers told him so. He glanced again at his watch. No one had dared to keep Russell Denton waiting in decades.
Russell sensed his life coming down around him with the same violence the storm outside. But fifty years in business had taught him never, ever, to show his emotions. Poker face. Essential.
“You could still change your mind,” Tyler’s disembodied voice suggested.
Russell gave a quick negative head shake. Tyler was wrong. Russell Denton couldn’t change his mind. Because if he did, he would die.
Purchase Raw Justice to continue reading ...
Diane Capri and
Lee Child Dialogue
Don’t Know Jack: Behind the Book
Readers ask me where I get my ideas. I usually tease, “I order them from ideas dot com.” The truth is I don’t always know. Ideas spark, kindle my interest and sometimes explode into a novel or a series of novels. But in the case of Don’t Know Jack, I do remember the moment.
A couple of years ago, I was chatting with Lee Child at a book event in New York about his iconic character.
“Where is Reacher hiding?” I asked.
“Reacher doesn’t hide,” Lee said. Maybe a little huffily?
Lee’s a lot bigger than me. And he writes violence like a man with experience. I’ve always thought him a gentle giant, but . . . . I backpeddaled a bit.
“Right. But where does Reacher live?”
“Wherever he wants,” the tall guy said. I thought I detected a slight challenge in his tone.
I backed out of arms’ reach before I pressed on. “He waits until trouble finds him and then he wipes the floor with the bad guys. Perfect. But what’s he doing between books?”
Lee shrugged, said nothing.
Tenaciously, I tried again.
“Reacher’s killed a lot of people by now. Sixteen books. A lot of bodies. Surely someone wants payback, don’t you think?”
Lee leveled the patented Reacher stare. “Who in his right mind would go looking for Reacher? You?”
Right. Only an idiot with a death wish—or an FBI agent who knows nothing about Reacher’s, er, talents—would undertake such a foolhardy quest. Even then, she wouldn’t do it if she had a choice.
But matching wits with Jack Reacher, now that would be interesting, I thought, even though it could very well be deadly. Then again, the bigger they are the harder they fall. Whoever takes Reacher down will become a legend in some circles.
What if a determined, ambitious woman . . . .
That’s the backdrop behind Don’t Know Jack.
Lee Child
THE REACHER REPORT:
March 2nd, 2012
....The other big news is Diane Capri—a friend of mine—wrote a book revisiting the events of KILLING FLOOR in Margrave, Georgia. She imagines an FBI team tasked to trace Reacher’s current-day whereabouts. They begin by interviewing people who knew him—starting out with Roscoe and Finlay. Check out this review from Amazon: “Oh heck yes! I am in love with this book. I’m a huge Jack Reacher fan. If you don’t know Jack (pun intended!) then get thee to the bookstore/wherever you buy your fix and pick up one of the many Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. Heck, pick up all of them. In particular, read Killing Floor. Then come back and read Don’t Know Jack. This story picks up the other from the point of view of Kim and Gaspar, FBI agents assigned to build a file on Jack Reacher. The problem is, as anyone who knows Reacher can attest, he lives completely off the grid. No cell phone, no house, no car...he’s not tied down. A pretty daunting task, then, wouldn’t you say?
“First lines: “Just the facts. And not many of them, either. Jack Reacher’s file was too stale and too thin to be credible. No human could be as invisible as Reacher appeared to be, whether he was currently above the ground or under it. Either the file had been sanitized, or Reacher was the most off-the-grid paranoid Kim Otto had ever heard of.” Right away, I’m sensing who Kim Otto is and I’m delighted that I know something she doesn’t. You see, I DO know Jack. And I know he’s not paranoid. Not really. I know why he lives as he does, and I know what kind of man he is. I loved having that over Kim and Gaspar. If you haven’t read any Reacher novels, then this will feel like a good, solid story in its own right. If you have...oh if you have, then you, too, will feel like you have a one-up on the FBI. It’s a fun feeling!
“Kim and Gaspar are sent to Margrave by a mysterious boss who reminds me of Charlie, in Charlie’s Angels. You never see him...you hear him. He never gives them all the facts. So they are left with a big pile of nothing. They end up embroiled in a murder case that seems connected to Reacher somehow, but they can’t see how. Suffice to say the efforts to find the murderer, and Reacher, and not lose their own heads in the process, makes for an entertaining read.
“I love the way the author handled the entire story. The pacing is dead on (ok another pun intended), the story is full of twists and turns like a Reacher novel would be, but it’s another viewpoint of a Reacher story. It’s an outside-in approach to Reacher.
“You might be asking, do they find him? Do they finally meet the infamous Jack Reacher?
“Go...read...now...find out!”
Sounds great, right? It’s available and you can get it HERE. Check it out, and let me know what you think.
So that’s it for now ... again, thanks for reading THE AFFAIR, and I hope you’ll like A WANTED MAN just as much in September.
Lee Child
Diane Capri Reveals Lee Child
(not Jack Reacher?)
September 16, 2012
There’s no nicer guy on the planet than my friend Lee Child. He’s kind, amusing, normal. What’s not to like? You probably feel the same. He’s smiling and blue-eyed friendly in all those author photos, right? What we see is what we get with Lee.
So I asked him if he wanted to be Revealed to Licensed to Thrill readers when his latest book was released. I figured we’d have a little fun, be a bit irreverent, maybe share some things about one of the world’s most beloved authors you didn’t already know.
I wasn’t nervous at all at first. That was dumb. Because I forgot one of Kim Otto’s first rules: You never see the bullet that gets you. The first unheeded warning was when Lee sent me his self-portrait before our chat. It was a sort of Andy Warhol thing....As a person who’s vertically challenged, I peered up through my binoculars and covered the most important point first.
Diane Capri: Someone recently described you as a lanky praying mantis. How tall are you, anyway? Ever wish you were shorter? I mean, don’t you get light-headed at that altitude?
Lee Child: I’m about ten inches tall when I’m lying down. About 6-4 when I’m standing up. Very thin, no matter how much I eat. I like being tall. Who wouldn’t? There are many completely unearned advantages. Like having an English accent—in America that’s 20 unearned IQ points, right there.
Diane Capri: Readers want to know some personal details about you that Charlie Rose didn’t ask. Let’s start with a few of those. Here’s an easy one. You were chewing gum when I saw you last in NYC and not hanging around the smoking sections. Have you quit smoking?
Lee Child: No, I’ll never quit smoking. I enjoy it. It’s one of my main pleasures in life. Every New Year I make the same resolution—keep on smoking.
Diane Capri: You know Kim Otto is hunting for Reacher in Don’t Know Jack and she’s more than a little worried that she might actually find him before she’s ready. She worries about Reacher’s facility for, um, solving problems. Your fans write, warning me not to disrespect Reacher because he’s one of the good guys. Clearly, Jack Reacher’s A Wanted Man—in more ways than one. That’s got to make you somewhat, well, let’s call it pleased. How does all this attention affect your life? Does your wife, Jane, still make you take out the trash and handle the broken toilets like a normal husband?
Lee Child: Oh, sure. I haul trash and fix things like any guy. I’m a qualified electrician, from backstage jobs in the theater. Also a qualified firefighter, for the same reason. Away from the hoopla, I live a completely normal life.
Diane Capri: Um, okay, thanks for sending along that picture of where you live amid not one single dust mote . . . . It fascinates me that your daughter, Ruth, has an amazing facility for languages. Did she inherit that from her parents? How many languages can she speak fluently? And what kind of work does one do with that talent, anyway?
Lee Child: Ruth speaks most of the European languages, and if there’s one she doesn’t, just wait a day or two until she masters it. It didn’t come from me or Jane. From my mother, possibly. Maybe it’s one of those things that skips a generation. My mother had a similar talent. Ruth works at NYC’s famous Gay and Lesbian Center, dealing with people who don’t speak English so good. She can do sign language too. And sign language for the blind.
Diane Capri: Like most writers, you read widely and love books. It’s astonishing that our Florida crime writers’ patron saint, Travis McGee, remained undiscovered to you until the mid-1990s, long after John D. McDonald died. Not surprising that you’re a fan and McGee has influenced your work, though. When you created Reacher, you avoided duplicating character traits that contemporary crime writers had already developed, but like you and McGee, Reacher is a tall dude. Does Reacher share any of McGee’s other traits? Do you?
Lee Child: Not really. McGee was pretty sure of himself. Reacher is professionally, as am I, but personally we’re a lot more diffident than old Travis. No grand pronouncements for either of us.
Diane Capri: We’re all looking forward to reading A Wanted Man which just opened to raves from readers and critics and at the top of the best seller lists. This is Reacher’s 17th chance to get his butt kicked. Is that gonna happen?
Lee Child: He has a busted nose in this one, carried over from the last one. (Well, not the last one, which was a prequel. The one before.) It was a challenge not to write anything about smells. Normally I’m a five-senses-all-the-time writer.
Diane Capri: Many readers have already devoured A Wanted Man and wait hungrily for Reacher #18. They want to put the title on their wish lists. What is it?
Lee Child: It’s called Never Go Back—because Reacher goes back to his old unit HQ and falls into a world of trouble.
Diane Capri: Well, sure. Trouble always finds Reacher. The other thing we’re looking forward to is the new film titled simply Jack Reacher, starring Tom Cruise. Cruise fans are swooning already; some Child fans are a bit less ecstatic. You’ve seen the film and loved it. Why?
Lee Child: It’s a fast, hard movie, and Cruise nails it dead on. How? Because he’s a great actor. They do that stuff for a living.
The rest of the cast is spectacular too. Altogether awesome. Plus it has a better car scene than Bullitt.
Diane Capri: When we put Reacher on trial for murder at the very first ThrillerFest, the still-to-be-revealed Kim Otto took Reacher on, sort of. Otto made darn sure everything went according to the law and Reacher still got off. But only because he cheated. Otto will be smarter next time they meet. Is Reacher worried?
Lee Child: Reacher didn’t cheat. It was jury nullification, pure and simple, because of his charm. Sure, he said with a smile, I killed the guy. Not guilty!
Diane Capri: Um, that’s a little unnerving, actually....For the first time ever, you’re headed to my summer town. I feel a bit like Kim Otto. She knows Reacher is watching her, and it’s a little creepy and she’s not all that thrilled about it. Of course, I’m looking forward to seeing you, but what brings you to Northern Michigan? Tell me straight. Are you stalking me?
Lee Child: Yes. Fortunately for me there’s a great author event there, for cover. Be afraid.
He said that with a smile. Maybe.
John Grisham’s THE FIRM (1991)
By: Diane Capri
In 1991, an explosive new talent conquered the best-seller lists, reinventing the legal thriller. The Firm was Mississippi small-town lawyer John Grisham’s (1955) second novel. In its wake, Grisham’s books, including legal thrillers, nonfiction, and other novels, have sold more than 235 million copies worldwide. Prior to The Firm, Grisham spent ten years in his first career as a small-town lawyer and Mississippi legislator. The passion to write his first novel, A Time to Kill, was ignited by an incident he witnessed while waiting his turn in court. The disturbing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim made him imagine the consequences if the victim’s father had killed her assailants. That first novel was published by a small press and had a printing of five thousand copies. Grisham then began writing The Firm, combining Faust’s mythical devil deal with high-octane David vs. Goliath, an unrivaled combination that became his forte. Grisham’s other thrillers include The Pelican Brief and The Client, two of his many books that were adapted into movies.
