Lynne Heitman was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. She attended Southern Methodist University where she completed her bachelors and masters degrees, both in business administration, and spent one season as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. After graduating, she went to work for a major airline in the finance department. Her career in the airline business spanned fourteen years and included a variety of assignments in finance, operations, and human resources. Her last assignment was as the airline's general manager at Boston's Logan Airport. Logan became the setting for her first novel. Lynne left the airline and moved to the Pacific Northwest to take a job with a small engineering consulting firm. When the company announced plans to relocate two years later, she chose to stay in Seattle, took a severance package, and used the time off to launch her writing career. She drew upon her experiences in the airline business to create the character of Alex Shanahan, the airline-manager-turned-PI, featured in her four thrillers. The second book in the series, PARTS UNKNOWN (previously TARMAC), was named by Publisher's Weekly as one of the year's best, and her short story EXIT INTERVIEW was published in the BOSTON NOIR anthology.After six years in Seattle, Lynne moved back to the Boston area where she lives today with her family.