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Ryan MacDonald
Ryan MacDonald is a Scottish author, speaker and retired senior police officer with more than thirty years’ experience across the military and policing. During his career he worked in frontline response policing, intelligence, counter-terrorism and major crime investigations, including extensive experience as a crime scene manager dealing with murders, suspicious deaths and serious incidents across Scotland.
His debut memoir, Blue Lights Dark Mind, became an Amazon No.1 bestseller and received praise for its honest and unflinching insight into trauma, leadership and life behind the police tape. Drawing heavily on his operational experience, Ryan now writes gritty, atmospheric Scottish crime fiction rooted in authenticity, surveillance operations, corruption investigations and the psychological pressures of modern policing.
His upcoming thriller, Directed Surveillance, is set in Dundee and explores the fallout from a police shooting and the dangerous web of secrecy surrounding it and is due to be published in 2026.
Ryan regularly speaks at literary festivals, public events and corporate engagements on crime, resilience, policing and mental health.
He is based in Scotland and is available for police procedural consultancy for all writers.
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