As a writer, I try to make plans but I’ve learned that, sometimes, such plans can very quickly go out of the window. I was halfway through Mac Maguire’s fourteenth adventure, A Murdered Crow, when a new idea hit me pretty much out of the blue. It was all Mac’s fault really as I had him reviewing some crime novels as part of his investigation into a murder and, in order to give him some clues, I had to invent a couple of authors and their fictional detectives. One of these fictional characters was called Detective Inspector Biddie O’Sullivan who works out of Cork City, Ireland. As I say, Biddie was invented just to help Mac’s plot along but, somehow, she stuck in my head.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Mac Maguire
The recipe for a good murder mystery…
I’ve been reading one of Miguel Barclay’s cook books and I really like the simplicity of his recipes. The book is based on the notion that you can eat well for just one pound ($1.20) a portion but, besides the fact that they taste good and are nutritious, the real appeal for me is that all the meals are quite quick to cook. To explain, I used to love cooking and found it to be something of an antidote to the stress that had built up during a long working day and commute. I didn’t even mind if the recipe was complicated, it just gave me more time to unwind.
That was great when I had the energy or spoons to do it but now I’m finding that, by the time I’ve cooked the meal, I might not have enough energy left to enjoy it. So, Miguel, with his quick recipes, has helped to restore my love of cooking by allowing me to spend less energy in the kitchen thus allowing me to enjoy the eating part too. I was looking at one of his recipes yesterday and I started wondering what would be a good recipe for a crime story. This is my take on that…
Continue reading‘Mac’s Christmas Present’ – Just published!
I will be the first to admit that this has been a very difficult year. It has been a year when I have struggled to get into any kind of flow with my writing. Until very recently that is. I am so grateful that, at last, I will be able to publish something in 2022. Not only a book but a Christmas book too.
I have been trying for the last few years to write a Mac Maguire novel set at Christmas but, however hard I tried, nothing came to me. So, it is in something like wonder that, very late in the day, the plotlines for Mac’s Christmas Present popped into my head.
Like my third book, The Weeping Women, it features two cases. However, at around 40k words, it’s somewhat shorter than most of my books so I will be selling it at a reduced price.
Continue readingWhat 2022 might have in store…
With a brand New Year having arrived all too quickly, I’ve been thinking about what might be happening in 2022 with regard to my books. I’ve now written twelve Mac Maguire mysteries and the thirteenth is about a third of the way there. This one will be set at Christmas and a Mac Maguire book set during the festive season is something that I’ve been trying to achieve for quite a while. In order to ensure that I succeed this time, I will continue writing this book during the early part of the year and will hopefully have it completed by June or July. If my plan works out then I should have no problem in publishing it in the run-up to next Christmas.
Does that mean that I will only be publishing only one book this year then? No.
Just published – The Blood Moon Murders
The twelfth Mac Maguire mystery has now been published. This one is a little different to the other eleven is that it has a supernatural element to it. I’ve always loved ghost stories and I’ve been looking for a way that I might incorporate this into a Mac Maguire story for some time. Finally, the idea came to me and so I’ve run with it.
I hope that fans of the series won’t be too thrown by this as the book is still very much a crime mystery. However, it’s also my hope that the new added supernatural aspects might just make it a little bit different and in a good way. I’m also aware that Halloween is upon us and so I’m delighted to get it published just in time for the occasion.
Continue readingComing soon – The Blood Moon Murders
Mac Maguire’s twelfth outing – The Blood Moon Murders – is a little different to the others. You might get a clue what this difference is through the dedication – ‘For Halloween, ghost stories and things that go bump in the night.’
I have long been an admirer of M. R. James and his ability to put ghostly goings-on right into the workaday world. I’d guess that it was the title that first gave me the idea that this might be my chance to incorporate a supernatural thread into a murder mystery. That and the fact that the book should be ready to be published around Halloween.
As you can guess from the title the murders take place during an eclipse of the Moon by the Earth. I witnessed a really good one some years ago and the effect of the moon darkening and then glowing red with the light that had made it through the Earth’s atmosphere is a really eerie experience. It was easy to see why ancient peoples saw this as a harbinger of change and even doom.
Continue readingPain – a fact of life for both Mac Maguire and me
Looking through all my posts, I realised that I’d never written anything about something that looms large in my life every single day and also in that of my fictional alter-ego, Mac Maguire. It can, by itself, decide whether a day is going to be good or bad.
Pain.
So, what brought this up in the first place? I was having an email conversation with one of my readers, who also has pain issues, when I was reminded of a review that someone left for one of my books a few years back. I’m paraphrasing here but it went something like – ‘It’s a good story and we know that the lead character suffers from pain but I don’t know why the author needs to keep mentioning it.’
To explain, Mac Maguire is the main character in my crime series of books. He’s a former police officer and murder specialist who was forced to retire from the force due to damage to his lower spine. This damage led to him having ongoing pain issues, in fact, pain issues very similar to mine! So, why did I saddle poor Mac Maguire with this in the first place? I was working at the BBC when I finally had to admit that I had a disability and it was only then that I began to notice the absolute lack of disabled people on TV and radio. This was also true for books and movies. So, when I began writing (ironically to take my mind off my pain) I wanted to ensure that I did my bit to make disabled characters more visible and that is why Mac Maguire inherited my pain issues.
Continue readingJust published – A Concrete Case of Murder
The eleventh book in the Mac Maguire detective series has just been published. Here’s the official blurb –
‘Mac is just back from holiday and is once again getting bored when he is asked to help out by the local police. It turns out to be one of the strangest thefts that Mac has ever come across – a whole house has gone missing! Evidence is hard to find but, with some creative thinking and the help of his partner, Mac finds himself on the track of a suspected murderer. Despite his best efforts, tragedy strikes, and he is left to wonder if the murderer will ever be brought to justice and whether this might be a case that he will never recover from.’
This book has been a long time coming. Since I retired and started writing full-time, I’ve been averaging two books a year. It’s taken well over a year just to produce this one. I hope that it’s been worth waiting for!
Continue readingJust published – The Eight Bench Walk – the tenth Mac Maguire mystery
The Eight Bench Walk, the latest Mac Maguire detective mystery, is now available from Amazon Books (see the links below).
Here’s the blurb –
After a long hard winter Mac goes on holiday to Cyprus to soak up some sun and becomes involved in a murder investigation. An old man has fallen from the balcony of his holiday apartment and the police believe that he was pushed. Mac helps the police teams in Cyprus and the UK uncover the truth behind his death. What they find leads them on a deadly chase for a priceless treasure… Continue reading
The Eight Bench Walk – Things to consider when setting a book abroad
My latest book The Eight Bench Walk should be ready for publication next month. This is the first Mac Maguire mystery that is more or less completely set abroad and so it presents its own set of problems. (Only part of Two Dogs was set in France and Ireland in The Chancer is definitely not ‘abroad’ as far as I’m concerned).
One of these was getting the locations right. Continue reading
Patrick C. Walsh Author 