12 March 2025
Lynne will be reflecting on her previous career as a press photographer covering world affairs, such as the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the First Gulf War, and relate how these impacted on her writing. She will describe how the coverage of many high-profile murder cases prepared her for the second chapter of her life, as an award-winning and popular crime writer. Her best-selling DI Shona Oliver series is set in Dumfries and on the Solway.
Lynne McEwan: biography
Glaswegian, Lynne McEwan, is a former national newspaper photographer turned best-selling crime writer. She has covered stories including the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the first of the Gulf Wars, as well as many high-profile murder cases.
She has an OU degree in English, and recently graduated with a Masters (Distinction) degree in Crime Fiction, part of the prestigious University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing Programme.
Lynne’s debut novel was In Dark Water, described as a compulsive Scottish thriller featuring the detective with nerves of steel, DI Shona Oliver, Head of Dumfries CID. It is set in the town and on the shores of the Solway and should successfully engage a lot of empathy from TSLS Members! For this book Lynne was named the Crime in the Spotlight author at the 2021 Bloody Scotland Festival -Tartan Noir at its best.
This was succeeded by Dead Man Deep, the second volume of the engrossing Shona Oliver series, set on the beautiful Solway Firth, where Shona combines her day job with being a lifeboat volunteer. Lynne needed to do some research for this and visited the Kippford RNLI Lifeboat Station, where she met the crew and some volunteers.
Lynne followed this with The Girls in the Glen (2023), a third Shona Oliver investigation. If the dead could only speak, what secrets would they tell? Archaeology, a serial killer, the attempted assassination of a local politician, what more could you want from a cosy afternoon sitting by the fire, with a good thriller in your hand?
In 2024, look out for a fourth Shona Oliver thriller, The Gathering Storm; when Lynne brings Hollywood to the Solway! This was published in February 2024
