A Taste for Murder: Pocklington-raised Patience writer Matt Baker's Capri-based first novel published by Penguin's Michael Joseph

You might recognise his name. Not from the credits of Countryfile like his namesake, the presenter, but of the first series of Patience, the York-set murder mystery show which was Channel 4’s biggest show of 2025.

Matt, 58, who grew up in Pocklington, was lead scriptwriter in that first UK outing of the adaptation but wasn’t involved in the second series currently airing - he’s been busy doing other things.

Chief among them A Taste for Murder, his debut novel, which has just been published in hardback by Penguin division Michael Joseph.

The book follows DCI Joe Mottram, a detective with the Metropolitan Police who, after a personal tragedy, retreats to the island of Capri with his daughter to stay with his Italian in-laws for the summer. Needless to say, there’s been a murder.

“I went to do that thing I'm sure a lot of first-time authors do,” says Matt. “I went to Waterstones in Piccadilly in central London to have a little look. It was there up in the new and reviewed section, somewhere between Richard Osman and Mick Herron. And I must admit, there was a little thrill in seeing it there.”

After he studied English Literature and Drama at Goldsmith’s College, Matt started his career as a journalist and went into corporate communications for Channel 4 - the very broadcaster with which Patience would later air. During the pandemic, he was working for what was Viacom/CBS, but took redundancy to focus on screenwriting.

His other television credits include period drama Hotel Portofino, which he created and wrote, while also adapting for British television the likes of Professor T, Before We Die and Suspect.

A novel, though, was long an ambition and it comes after previous periods - even before his TV days started - when he would be up in the pre-dawn, before his family woke up, trying to draft a book.

“I started all this when I was 52, so it just shows a second act is possible for anyone, I think,” says Matt.

“I spent 30 years building up a reputation doing one thing and then starting again can be intimidating but if it’s something you’ve always wanted to do, it has that extra incentive.”

Naturally, a television version of A Taste for Murder is on the way – in fact it has already been filmed, with appearances from Warren Brown, Phyllis Logan, Beau Gadsdon and Cristiana Dell'Anna, who is known for being in Italian crime drama Gomorrah.

Much of it was filmed in Croatia, doubling for the setting of Capri.

Matt chose to situate the book on the Italian island because, for one, it is where film stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood used to come and come and spend time, so it has glamour.

But also, “it's a small island, it's quite claustrophobic, so it has that sense of everybody knowing everybody else's business.”

Not to mention the looming threat of Vesuvius as well as nearby Naples and “associations with organized crime. So there's lots and lots of interesting elements to play with as an author and hopefully those are things that will make the story compelling.”

It’s a place that Matt has visited several times. “The first time we went was probably about 25 years ago with my then girlfriend, now my wife. She was pregnant with our first child. We were in Positano on holiday and we took a day trip to Capri and, I don't know what the hell I was thinking but we ended up – with Jo pregnant – walking up...there’s like this big pumice stone, overturned, and it's got these two ends of it, which are very mountainous and vertiginous.

"We ended up walking up through the old town, to the top of this cliff, which is actually in the book, Tiberius’ Leap. It's a real place. There's the ruins of Roman palace at the top and it's where the Emperor Tiberius used to throw his enemies off the top of this 300 metre cliff to their deaths on the rocks below. He would have sailors waiting in boats to beat them to death with clubs, just in case they landed in the sea and survived the fall.”

A romantic getaway to remember, then. But the story of Tiberius’ Leap is reminiscent of a gruesome image described from an aerial perspective in the prologue to A Taste for Murder too.

“It’s a classic example of how you bring skills you learn in one medium to another because, actually, (that description) is quite a televisual idea. You almost start a TV series about a crime or a murder with the discovery of the body and you want to try and make it as different and televisual as possible so I think what I was doing there was bringing some of my skills and the tricks I've learned writing for TV and applying them in print.”

While Matt is enjoying the early days of being a bona fide published author, he says there is “unfinished business” with Patience, which is an adaptation of Franco-Belgian series Astrid et Raphaëlle.

“I feel a lot of ownership for Patience,” he says. “I loved writing the series. I loved working with the people involved in it, particularly Ella Maisy (Purvis), who's the lead, and Maarten (Moerkerke), who's the director. I've got unfinished business with it.

"I don't think I'm giving anything away to say the second series has performed so strongly – and to be fair to me, the first series performed incredibly strongly as well – so I'm pretty sure it will be back and, I can't give anything away, but I'm keen to remain connected to the show, shall we say. So, I think, watch this space.”

A Taste for Murder by Matt Baker is out now.