Douglas Anne Munson was born in Crossville, Tennessee on February 17, 1948. Her childhood was spent moving from town to town before her family finally settled in southern California. Douglas attended the University of New Mexico, where she majored in Latin American studies. She then attended the UCLA school of Law and became an attorney.
In 1990, Douglas published a novel called El Niño, then went on to publish two mystery novels under the name of Mercedes Lambert--Dogtown in 1991 and Soultown in 1996—featuring attorney-turned-sleuth, Whitney Logan. After leaving the law profession, Douglas moved to the Czech Republic, where she was diagnosed with a return of the cancer she had successfully fought in the late 1980s. Douglas returned to the United States in 2001, and died on December 22, 2003 at a hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut. A final novel in the Whitney Logan series, Ghosttown, was published posthumously.