Author of the book ‘The Magpie’ was at Waterstones Durham for the book signing event. The author talked about the book and his inspiration behind writing this book.

This is based on the story of a serial killer who is very sharp and viciously neat in his technique. There is a Detective Constable Frank Bolam who has murder cases to solve. Bolam finds this first victim drowned in the river with a brutal knife wound in his back. A few months later he finds another victim killed with the exact same technique.

Bolam becomes obsessed with this serial killer and he vows to bring him to justice at whatever cost. He is disappointed by this devastating sadness brought to the victims’ families by this murderer.

These are the times of war and in the quest of finding this murderer, Bolam enlists himself for the Army where he heads for the ditches to track down this cold-blooded murder in the midst of most mechanized slaughter of the men that the world has ever seen.

The author, Gary Toward was a teacher for the past 33 years and he taught in 6 different schools also remaining the head teacher of 3.

His passion for World War I continued to grow when he visited Ypres with his colleagues. He is a keynote speaker now and an educational trainer who has coauthored four successful books.

His interests are in sports, mountaineering, football, and cycling and are passionate about equal education for all.