Jaqueline "Jaki" Girdner is a lifelong reader from a family of readers and writers. While working her way through world literature, children's literature, science fiction, and other genres, she earned a degree in psychology, practiced tai chi, and eventually became a lawyer. While in law school, she read her way through Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and John Dickson Carr. For a short time, she worked for a criminal law firm, then set up shop on her own as a family law attorney and eventually started a greeting card company called Jest Cards, which didn't make her much money but finally led her to create Kate Jasper, who owned a gag gift company called Jest Gifts and practiced tai chi. Kate Jasper stumbled over dead bodies, and Jaki sold her first mystery novel. And then eleven more. She has also written, as Claire Daniels, about Cally Lazar, a recovering attorney who does "cane-fu" and has an energetic healing practice.
