McGuire grew up near Hull, England, and studied at the University of Manchester and the University of Virginia in the
United States. He is the co-founder and co-director of the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing. He writes criticism and fiction, and his stories have been published in Chicago Review, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. “The North Water” is his second novel, and a finalist for the 2016 L.A. Times Book Prize in Mystery/Thriller.