Richard McGonegal

Richard F. McGonegal (Grad ’75) has published The Forget-Me-Knot, a mystery novel. His book is the third in the Sheriff Francis Hood mystery series, preceded by Sense of Grace and Ghoul Duty.

McGonegal received a Master’s degree in English literature at UVA in 1975, where he was a student in Peter Taylor’s creative writing class. He and his wife, Kristie, live in Jefferson City, Missouri, and are the parents of two adult daughters, Heather and Jane.

Richard F. McGonegal (Grad ’75 CM) has published the novel Ghoul Duty with Cave Hollow Press.

The mystery is the second in the Sheriff Francis Hood series, which began with publication of Sense of Grace in 2020.

McGonegal is a 1975 graduate of the University of Virginia, where he received a master’s degree in English Language and Literature. While attending UVA, he studied creative writing with Peter Taylor, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

“Ghoul Duty” is the unofficial moniker for the task of recovering corpses unearthed by Missouri River flooding. After the sheriff and his chief deputy retrieve a body, they learn it did not come from the cemetery.

The revelation begins the process of determining who the man is and how he died. Complicating Hood’s efforts are his early recovery from alcoholism; his separation from his wife and daughter; a new twist on a relationship from his past; and the puzzling behavior of an ex-convict, whose father was killed by Hood in a shootout.

McGonegal is also a 1973 graduate of Rutgers University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature.

He retired in 2017 after a 41-year journalism career at the Jefferson City News Tribune, a daily newspaper in Missouri’s capital city. McGonegal and his wife, Kristie, live in Jefferson City, Missouri, where their two adult daughters, Heather and Jane, also reside.

Print and Kindle versions of his books are available online at Amazon.com.