I’ve just published the seventh Mac Maguire detective mystery novel and it’s called The Match of the Day Murders. This new book combines my love of crime fiction and football. Here’s the official blurb-
‘It’s been the worst summer in years and Mac is once more at a loose end. He then meets the mother of a murdered girl and is asked to look into an unsolved murder case that is nearly five years old. Her daughter wasn’t the only girl who died in what became known as ‘The Match of the Day Murders’. Three girls had been found on football fields exactly one week after the other and all had been strangled to death. Mac agrees to do what he can but, before he can even get started, he is asked by his old friend DI Andy Reid from the Major Crime Unit to help. They are also re-investigating the case and so Mac finds himself working alongside Kate Grimsson once again as they dig deep into the past. A serial killer appears to be still on the loose and Mac is worried that he might start killing again.
Mac too has an anniversary coming up and it’s bothering him. It will soon be a year since his wife Nora died and he is totally unsure as to how he will face it. Meanwhile Kate has her own personal problems as the past comes back to haunt her and she finds that she has an important decision to make.
A story of life, death and football.’ Continue reading
I’m taking a quick break from writing the seventh novel in the Mac Maguire series in order to write this post. In the next few weeks I’ll be handing over the first draft to my partner for its first read through. I’m planning on publishing the novel, as yet unnamed, late April or early May and hopefully by then I’ll have come up with a title.
I’ve only started writing crime novels with any seriousness in the last three years or so and in that time I’ve never attended any sort of literary festival. So when I heard about the line-up for this year’s 
So why Hertfordshire and especially why Letchworth Garden City as the backdrop for a series of crime books? As I said in my earlier post when talking about why I made my main character disabled, I was just following some good advice – write about what you know. As I live in Letchworth I know it quite well. There’s a bit more to it than that though.
Patrick C. Walsh Author 