A BOOK WRITTEN by murdered journalist Lyra McKee is going on pre-sale this week. 

Lyra McKee, a 29-year-old journalist, died after shots were fired in the Fanad Drive area of Creggan during rioting on 18 April.

The New IRA confirmed responsibility, and offered its “full and sincere apologies to the partner, family and friends of Lyra McKee for her death”.

Northern Ireland’s PSNI have made several arrests since McKee’s murder in April. 

The book, Angels with Blue Faces, was written as a result of a five-year investigation by McKee into the IRA killing of MP Robert Bradford in 1981. It’s due to be released at the end of June. 

Lyra interviewed Bradford’s friends, colleagues, and acquaintances as well as a number of other sources – and claims the MP’s killing might have been stopped by intelligence services.

The front cover of Angles with Blue Faces Excalibur Press Excalibur Press

Tina Calder, owner of Excalibur Press said she was “proud” the publisher is now in a position to release the book as part of Lyra’s legacy.

“It is with great sadness but immense honour that we are now able to reveal the cover of Angels With Blue Faces,” Calder said.

“Just a short time before her death Lyra had approved her cover and sent the final changes for her book, she should have been holding it in her hand at the end of April,” she said.

“Lyra’s investigation into the death of Northern Ireland MP Robert Bradford was a passion project for her, for years it became her obsession as she followed lead after lead in the pursuit of the truth.”

As per McKee’s wishes prior to her death, her own proceeds of the book will be donated to the organisation Paper Trail - a social enterprise which offers specialised and targeted legacy archive research to the legal profession.

McKee’s sister Nichola McKee Corner has said she was proud to see Lyra’s book about to be published.

Lyra put years into this project. It is so sad that she never got to hold the final copy of Angels with Blue Faces in her hand. I am just so proud of you now as I was of you every day or your life.

Angels With Blue Faces can be pre-ordered here.