Lynne McEwan

Biography I wrote for Lynne with book descriptions.

Lynne McEwan used to work as a photographer for a national newspaper before she decided to become a crime fiction author. During her long career, she covered the first Gulf War the Fall of the Berlin War, and several high-profile murder cases.

Some of the papers that she has worked for include the Cardiff based “The Western Mail,” “The Mirror,” “The People,” and “Sunday Mirror.” She has been behind and in front of the camera when she starred in “Greogry’s Girl” the cult movie.

After going to the University of Anglia where she graduated with a crime fiction master’s degree, she decided to become an author.

She published “In Dark Water,” her debut novel in 2021, and has kicked on from there. The novel went on to become a bestseller that it would ultimately spawn the “Detective Shona Oliver” series of novels.

Lynne currently makes her home in Lincoln, has been part of “The Elder Project” funded by the Arts Council, the NHS’s workshops on “Surviving by Storytelling,” and has also worked with Writing East Midlands.

She has also appeared in many festivals including the Wigtown Spring Weekend, Wigtwon Book Festival, and Bloody Scotland among others.
 
Early on, Lynn went to the Glasgow College of Building and Printing where she studied photography. It was this that would open the doors for her after graduation that she got to have so many interesting experiences that she often alludes to in her novels.

Being a photojournalist she had insights and a window into the world in all its emotional and tragic glory that she would then put down on paper.

Working with major city newspapers, she was front and center covering murders alongside some well-known crime correspondents. She used to sit and listen as people poured out their stories and then collected pictures of their loved ones.

The most important of these cases which stuck on her mind was that of a boy named Stephen Larence since she along with a “Sunday Mirror” reporter were the first journalists to visit the family.

According to the police, the little boy’s death was gang-related but the reporter thought otherwise.

There was also the case of a victim of the Paddington Rail Crash who wanted advice on whether he would recover, since he was certain Lynn McEwan had dealt with such cases before.
 
Needing some variety, Lynne McEwan would at some point venture into celebrity journalism. She has photographed many celebrities over the years including comedian Jack Dee, actors James Coburn and Peter Vaughan, and even Princess Diana.

However, she would really come into her own and gain fame with the iconic photos she took during the fall of the Berlin Wall and some in Iraq.

She was responsible for taking the photo of the boy in West Berlin peeking through the wall and seeing a soldier on the East side. While it was a chance photo, she managed to capture all the motion and mood of the moment perfectly.

She also worked alongside the Welsh FGuards during the First Gulf War and took the iconic photo of the soldier who was showering in the desert.

Ultimately, she drew on her experiences of emotion and conflict when she decided to become a crime fiction author. She had seen all the devastation, murder, emotion, and conflict and felt she was the best person to put it in words as opposed to pictures.
 
Lynne McEwan’s novel “In Dark Water” is a Scottish crime fiction that introduces Shona Oliver a detective inspector that recently moved to Dumfries.

She had previously been living in London with her former banker husband who has just been let go. Rob is now running a bed and breakfast in their home and taking care of Becca their 15-year-old daughter.

Shona works as a volunteer on search and rescue missions for RNLI. It is while she was working for the organization that she stumbles upon the body of a young woman.

According to her boss, she needs to drop the case since it lacks any evidence of homicide. Instead, the case has been handed over to Cumbria Police detective constable Daniel Radley.

Shortly thereafter, Radley is also instructed to drop the case which frustrates Shona. Meanwhile, Gavin Baird her boss has been sucking opportunities and resources from Shona and her team. Shona feels indebted to the young woman.

They team up with Radley and as more murders with a similar modus operandi are reported they become determined to resolve the mystery.

But she may have underestimated the forces she is fighting which are determined to ensure her investigations fail and consequently begin threatening her family and career.
 
“Dead Man Deep” by Lynne McEwan opens with Shona Oliver the detective inspector getting a distress call from Kilcatrin Island. On the shore, she finds a badly charred body of a meanwhile a few meters away lies a gravely injured boy.

Strewn all over the beach are all manner of incendiary bombs from the Second World War that had supposedly come from an offshore dump known as Beaufort’s Dyke. They soon learn that the dead man is a local fisherman and the boy is his son.

The news shakes the small community of Solway Firth. Since she is friends with widow Laura Carlin who is now left all alone Shona needs to stay away from the family.

However, she cannot ignore the many hardships her neighbors have been going through as closed cockle beds and fishing quotes take their toll.

There is a lot of anger toward the Ministry of Defence that may just be covering up a major public relations scandal. As the beaches are shit and many business face closure including Shina’s B&B, things can only get worse.

Things only get worse when more deaths are reported and at every turn, Shona finds suspicious behavior.
 
Lynne McEwan’s novel “The Girls in the Glen” continues to follow detective inspector Olive and Becca her daughter that are spending some time on an archeological dig.
They had uncovered some human remains which are then declared as being recently buried. Before the detective inspector can take any action, a police officer informs her that there has been a shooting at a nearby housing estate.

When she arrives on the scene, she finds that the man killed was a well-known and controversial Scottish member of parliament.

The man had been shot with a rifle rather than a shotgun which means he had not been shot by members of his shooting party. The man had not been apprehended and there were all places he could hide as he picked out even more targets.

However, the big question is who wanted the member of parliament dead. DI Oliver is also dealing with the matter of the remains found and wonders if they could be those of the missing girls.

But even as she works on the two complicated cases, she is also dealing with some secretive people from her team and higher-ups who would prefer she forget the past and concentrate on the present.