Lynne McEwan on - How news photography prepared me for a life of crime.

Like many writers, I had a whole other life before I came to crime fiction. I’d already written my first published novel, In Dark Water, when a question at a festival event started me thinking just how much newspaper photography had influenced what I wrote. The answer was quite a lot and in ways I’m still discovering five books later.

I’d cut my teeth as a freelance photographer for The Glasgow Herald, straight out of college -very keen, very short – I’d cause amusement when, unable to elbow my way through a photocall scrum of big blokes I’d instead crawl to the front through their legs. It gave me a unique angle, as did the advice to always shoot a three or five picture series, a visual story, even if the job only called for just one. Little did I realise this created a subliminal narrative process that even now I find difficult to switch off. I see the world, and write my books, as a long series of images.

There were some big moments – the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the First Gulf War – but it was from working with crime reporters covering murders I learned the most about how people react when faced with the worst possible news. Some of the stories I covered faded quickly from the public consciousness, others did not.

The Pembrokeshire Murders, recently a three-part ITV drama staring Luke Evans, were a pair of double murders several years apart carried out in the national park in the 1980s. It took a cold case review in 2010 to convict the serial killer responsible by which time he’d also committed multiple burglaries, sexual assault, rape and an armed robbery. This wasn’t just down to the lack of forensic techniques. What I remember most was the fervent way the officers on the investigation stuck to the line of enquiry they’d formulated, that the crimes were so heinous they must have been carried out by an outsider, probably someone off the ships at the nearby tanker terminal at Milford Haven. They were wrong, the monster was among them and perhaps if they’d stress-tested their own narrative against the evidence, he’d have been caught sooner.

The murder in Cardiff of Karen Price, dubbed The Body in the Carpet was the first time a forensically reconstructed clay head was used to identify a victim, an example of creative thinking useful to crime writers ever since.

Through these experiences I spent time with police officers and forensic scientists. I even had a memorable day with a police pathologist who, once the portrait I’d come for had been shot, allowed me to tag along to a couple of sudden deaths, and subsequently becoming the model for Professor Sue Kitchen in my books. No pictures could be taken at the crime scenes, but she explained with knowledge and compassion how much responsibility she felt to find answers for the deceased’s loved ones.

And it was the victim’s families and friends that really stayed with me. Often, taking the actual photographs would only last a few minutes in an hour-long interview but I’d sit and listen as people poured their hearts out. In the early days there were no family liaison officers, police delivered the news and left. Journalists were often the first people the bereaved encountered. If you did not have empathy and respect you wouldn’t get far. Leafing through albums to collect pictures of the dead was one of the most moving experiences of my life and many of those encounters are still with me.

When I worked at the Sunday Mirror, a reporter and I were the only journalists to visit Stephen Lawrence’s parents the morning after his murder. Seeing the impact that case has made and the way it continues to change attitudes is a testament to the fortitude of Stephen’s family.

As Val McDermid once commented about her time as a reporter, ‘it’s the sort of job that gives you a card index of memories that you can dip into for a character, an atmosphere, a look’. In my case, I’m often not aware I have them until they’re shaken lose from their dusty folder by a line from a scene, or the need to portray some action or emotion.

When I first wrote the character of DI Shona Oliver she’d been brewing in my mind for nearly thirty years. Early in my career I worked for the Western Mail and lived in Cardiff where I sailed with the yacht club. Penarth RNLI had a female crew member, which was unusual for the time. Sitting in the bar in atrocious weather, we’d watch the lifeboat go out when everyone else was running for cover. I wanted to shoot a feature with her, but for one reason and another it never happened. It was one of those stories that got away, so I was never able to ask my burning question – why would you voluntarily put yourself in danger to help a complete stranger? The DI Shona Oliver series has been my exploration of that question and making her also a police officer as well as an RNLI volunteer felt like the perfect fit.

I’d travelled to most parts of the UK in my career, but when it came to finding a setting for my crime series, the Solway coast jumped out at me. It’s a crossing place between England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so if I run out of home-grown crimes I can easily import more. It helps me link the location and crime to a national and international issues. It’s also beautiful but dangerous place. There’s menace in the very landscape itself.

For the latest in the series, A Troubled Tide, I drew not only from murders but the bread-and-butter photographer’s jobs – community fund raisers, amateur sporting events. Shona witnesses the drowning of a fellow officer at a charity triathlon, and what at first appears an accident soon takes a darker turn.  As novelist and screen writer William Goldman once said, life is material.

Being a photojournalist allowed me a window on the world and gave me pictures in all their fascinating, tragic, joyous glory. I’m still telling the stories I think are important, only now it’s the words rather than the pictures that make it onto the page.

A Troubled Tide by Lynne McEwan (Canelo) Out Now

The threat has never been so close to home… DI Shona Oliver’s fellow officer PC Hayley Cameron drowns during a triathlon in the Solway Firth. The post-mortem reveals drugs in Hayley's system, perhaps self-administered performance enhancers. But a puncture wound in the back of her wetsuit suggests foul play. Shona and her colleagues investigate, but those closest to Hayley grapple with the truth and risk letting personal feelings cloud their judgement. Could the answers to Hayley’s death lie within Shona’s own ranks? As the case hits the buffers, Shona clashes with her daughter and also faces difficult questions about the murder of her old boss. Will Shona keep her head above the water long enough to see justice done, and what will it cost her if she does?

More information about Lynne McEwan and her books can be found on her website. She can also be found on Facebook, Threads and Instagram @lynnejmcewanwriter