Arachnid Press, 91 Columbia Avenue, Livingston (2025)

04/10/2025

One broch, two millennia, three murders. ‘Thicker Than Water’ is a compelling murder mystery set in northern Scotland.

The fictional Sarclet Castle on the east coast of Caithness south of Wick is the focal point for much of the story and close to the scene of three murders. It is partly based on the real Castle of Mey on the north coast of Caithness, shown here.

Available as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple. Find out more:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-ttw/index.html

Callum Anderson and Jenny Mackay are spending Hogmanay at Sarclet Castle in Caithness when they are asked to investigate the brutal murder of a young woman at nearby Sarclet Broch in 1943, a woman whose ghost is believed to haunt the castle.

What seems the coldest of cold cases is not the first murder of a young woman at the broch: there was another nearly two thousand years earlier. Nor is it the last. On the day that Callum and Jenny arrive, there is a third fatal stabbing there.

Their investigation into the 1943 murder uncovers shoddy police work and the possibility of a serial killer: but can anything be proved after eight decades? Meanwhile they find themselves drawn into the increasingly dangerous hunt for the latest murderer.

03/10/2025

Is your enemy’s enemy always your friend? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Friend or Foe?’ is a fast-paced thriller set largely in south-west Scotland during World War Two.

This modern image shows Lochryan House. During the war it served as a headquarters for the huge military port built at Cairnryan in case traditional ports on the Clyde or Mersey were destroyed by enemy bombing. Lochryan House is visited by the book’s central characters as their hunt for a spy builds towards its climax.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/buy.html
If you wish this can be signed and dedicated by the author at no extra cost.
For a limited time only, paperback sales are P&P free for UK purchasers.

It’s late June 1943. Bob and Monique Sutherland’s journey home from Malta is interrupted, first in London to hear Soviet claims of a German spy in Scotland and then by a shoot-out between US military units in Lancashire.

Having returned to Edinburgh, they remain only briefly before travelling with a Military Intelligence 11 team to Galloway to track down the spy. How best to catch a ghost who may already have uncovered vital military secrets? Can they find him before it’s too late?

When two Soviet agents arrive in Galloway to help, Bob and Monique need to work out the difference between friend and foe. Does the German spy exist, or is he a Soviet invention intended to lure MI11 into danger?

02/10/2025

How many deaths to end a war? ‘Eyes Turned Skywards’ is a fast-paced thriller set mainly in northern Scotland during World War Two. It uses many real settings, transported eight decades back in time.

The image shows the memorial to the men who died when a Short Sunderland flying boat crashed into a remote hillside inland from Dunbeath in Caithness in August 1942. This was a place the aircraft should never have been and the mystery surrounding the crash has, over the years, prompted many theories about its cause. It is also the starting point for the story told in ‘Eyes Turned Skywards’.

Available as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple. Find out more:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-ets/index.html

Wing Commander Robert Sutherland has left his days as a pre-war detective far behind him. Or so he thinks. On the 25th of August 1942 the Duke of Kent, brother of King George VI, is killed in northern Scotland in an unexplained air crash and a second crash soon after suggests a shared, possibly sinister, cause.

Bob Sutherland is tasked with visiting the aircraft’s base in Oban and the first crash site in Caithness to try to uncover who might have sabotaged one, or both, of the aircraft.

Set against the background of a country that is far from united behind Winston Churchill and the ever-present threat from the enemy, we follow Bob as he unravels layers of deceit and intrigue far beyond anything he could have imagined.

01/10/2025

When the hunter becomes the prey. ‘The High Road’ is a fast-paced contemporary thriller set mainly in central Scotland and the far north-west.

Kinlochbervie in Sutherland plays an important part in the story as it builds towards its climax and the central character stays in the Kinlochbervie Hotel, seen here from the harbour, after travelling north.

Available as a Kindle, Kobo, Apple or audiobook. Find out more:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-thr/index.html

Callum Anderson is in Scotland to scatter his father’s ashes when he’s asked by a cousin to look for her missing sister, Alexandra. With his life in London in tatters and suspended from duty by the Metropolitan Police, why not?

It soon becomes clear that Alex is on the run from a local criminal. But someone much more dangerous is after her too and sees Callum as a means of finding her and adding to a trail of bodies that extends across two countries.

After a brief entanglement with a Police Scotland anti-terrorist operation, Callum drops off the radar to follow the only lead he has left, which takes him to the far north-west of Scotland. But can he find Alex before his own hunter finds him?

30/09/2025

Just published! Is your enemy’s enemy always your friend? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Friend or Foe?’ is a fast-paced thriller set largely in south-west Scotland during World War Two.

This modern image shows Barra Airport in the Western Isles, the only beach airport anywhere in the world to be used by scheduled airline services. It has been in use since the 1930s and the two central characters fly here at the end of the book.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/buy.html
If you wish this can be signed and dedicated by the author at no extra cost.
For a limited time only, paperback sales are P&P free for UK purchasers.

It’s late June 1943. Bob and Monique Sutherland’s journey home from Malta is interrupted, first in London to hear Soviet claims of a German spy in Scotland and then by a shoot-out between US military units in Lancashire.

Having returned to Edinburgh, they remain only briefly before travelling with a Military Intelligence 11 team to Galloway to track down the spy. How best to catch a ghost who may already have uncovered vital military secrets? Can they find him before it’s too late?

When two Soviet agents arrive in Galloway to help, Bob and Monique need to work out the difference between friend and foe. Does the German spy exist, or is he a Soviet invention intended to lure MI11 into danger?

29/09/2025

Just published! Is your enemy’s enemy always your friend? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Friend or Foe?’ is a fast-paced thriller set largely in south-west Scotland during World War Two.

This modern image shows Stranraer harbour. It looked rather different in 1943 and has an important role in the book as the hunt for a spy builds towards its dramatic conclusion.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/buy.html
If you wish this can be signed and dedicated by the author at no extra cost.
For a limited time only, paperback sales are P&P free for UK purchasers.

It’s late June 1943. Bob and Monique Sutherland’s journey home from Malta is interrupted, first in London to hear Soviet claims of a German spy in Scotland and then by a shoot-out between US military units in Lancashire.

Having returned to Edinburgh, they remain only briefly before travelling with a Military Intelligence 11 team to Galloway to track down the spy. How best to catch a ghost who may already have uncovered vital military secrets? Can they find him before it’s too late?

When two Soviet agents arrive in Galloway to help, Bob and Monique need to work out the difference between friend and foe. Does the German spy exist, or is he a Soviet invention intended to lure MI11 into danger?

28/09/2025

The siege is over but the war goes on. ‘The Eye of Horus’ is an atmospheric World War Two thriller with settings that move from the Highlands of Scotland via Gibraltar to Malta.

The two central characters are staying in Kyle of Lochalsh at the beginning of the story, having travelled there by rail from Edinburgh. This modern photograph shows the railway station at Kyle of Lochalsh, a building that has not changed greatly over the past eight decades.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-eoh/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-eoh/buy.html
If you wish this can be signed and dedicated by the author at no extra cost.
For a limited time only, paperback sales are P&P free for UK purchasers.

It’s June 1943. Bob and Monique Sutherland are on honeymoon in Kyle of Lochalsh when an unexpected visitor arrives to spoil their idyll.

They agree to travel to Malta to search for two missing men, a young naval lieutenant and an MI6 officer who has disappeared while looking for him. The aerial siege of the island is over and the tide of war has turned but, after three years of bombing, Malta remains a shattered place.

The available leads produce more questions than answers and progress is impeded by lies. As Bob and Monique come closer to discovering what became of the two men, events take a dangerous turn and their priority shifts from enjoying their honeymoon to surviving it.

27/09/2025

A game of secrets and lies. ‘Bloody Orkney’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland, mainly in Orkney, during World War Two. It uses many real settings, transported eight decades back in time.

The once huge naval base at Lyness on the island of Hoy plays an important part in the book. This modern photograph taken from the hill behind Lyness shows some of what remains of the naval base today. In the background is part of what in 1942 was one of the most important and most heavily defended naval anchorages in the world, Scapa Flow.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-blork/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-blork/buy.html
If you wish this can be signed and dedicated by the author at no extra cost.
For a limited time only, paperback sales are P&P free for UK purchasers.

It’s November 1942. Bob Sutherland, Monique Dubois and the Military Intelligence 11 team fly in to review security in Orkney, home to one of the most important and most heavily defended naval anchorages in the world.

But an unidentified body has been found. It becomes clear that powerful men have things they’d rather keep hidden and MI11’s arrival threatens the status quo. Then Bob stumbles over a ghost from his past and things get far too personal.

He and Monique are called away to resolve a crisis at a secret experimental base at Gruinard Bay in Wester Ross. When they return to Orkney, they find that the rules have been rewritten and they are in very real danger.

26/09/2025

Just published! Is your enemy’s enemy always your friend? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Friend or Foe?’ is a fast-paced thriller set largely in south-west Scotland during World War Two.

This modern image shows what, at the time the book is set, was the Red Lion Inn in Wigtown. It has since become a house. Bob, Monique and the Military Intelligence 11 team spend an evening here during their stay at RAF Wigtown.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-fof/buy.html
If you wish this can be signed and dedicated by the author at no extra cost.
For a limited time only, paperback sales are P&P free for UK purchasers.

It’s late June 1943. Bob and Monique Sutherland’s journey home from Malta is interrupted, first in London to hear Soviet claims of a German spy in Scotland and then by a shoot-out between US military units in Lancashire.

Having returned to Edinburgh, they remain only briefly before travelling with a Military Intelligence 11 team to Galloway to track down the spy. How best to catch a ghost who may already have uncovered vital military secrets? Can they find him before it’s too late?

When two Soviet agents arrive in Galloway to help, Bob and Monique need to work out the difference between friend and foe. Does the German spy exist, or is he a Soviet invention intended to lure MI11 into danger?

25/09/2025

Relentless pursuit and a grisly murder. ‘Hide and Seek’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Stirling Castle and more widely across Scotland during World War Two. It uses many real settings, transported eight decades back in time.

RAF Grangemouth, once the Central Scotland Airport but now long gone, is amongst the Scottish locations used. This modern photograph shows the replica Spitfire at the RAF Grangemouth memorial.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-has/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-has/buy.html
If you wish this can be signed and dedicated by the author at no extra cost.
For a limited time only, paperback sales are P&P free for UK purchasers.

It’s April 1943. Medical student Helen Erickson is followed from London to her aunt’s farm in Perthshire. What do her pursuers want?

Meanwhile Monique Dubois is attending a secret meeting at Stirling Castle when an old adversary is murdered in a chilling echo of a dark episode in the castle’s history. Bob Sutherland and the MI11 team are called in and discover that almost everyone who knew the victim had a motive.

Helen disappears and it becomes clear that national security is at stake. Monique sets out to find the missing woman before anyone else does, even if it means killing to protect her. Can Monique find Helen? Can Bob track down the killer at Stirling Castle? And just how dangerous have things become for both of them?

24/09/2025

You can’t ask a dead man who pulled the trigger. ‘A Tangled Web’ is a fast-paced contemporary thriller set in northern Scotland.

The elusive Hermit’s Castle at Achmelvich on the west coast of Sutherland is visited by the book’s two central characters. This remarkable concrete folly was built in 1950 and is sometimes known as Europe's smallest castle: though it’s a castle in name only.

Available as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple. Find out more:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-atw/index.html

Callum Anderson returns to north-west Sutherland to help local GP Jenny Mackay investigate the death of her husband. The authorities say he committed su***de but she’s convinced he was murdered.

As an accountant and a councillor, Iain Mackay was an upstanding pillar of society. Or was he? Callum soon discovers that Iain lied to everyone who thought he loved them: especially his wife and his daughters. He was also a philanderer, a blackmailer and thoroughly corrupt. The possible motives for both murder and su***de begin to mount.

What Callum discovers puts his fledgling relationship with Jenny under real strain. But that becomes the least of their problems when they come up against people who have already killed and would have no qualms about killing again.

23/09/2025

When the past comes back to haunt you. ‘The Danger of Life’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland during World War Two. It uses many real settings, transported eight decades back in time.

The busy port of Mallaig lies at the end of the ‘Road to the Isles’. This modern photograph shows it in beautiful weather: quite unlike the stormy day on which a deadly manhunt reaches its climax here in the book.

Available as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple. Find out more:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-dol/index.html

It’s October 1942. Group Captain Robert Sutherland’s first week in charge of Military Intelligence 11's operations in Scotland and northern England is not going smoothly. His efforts to find out who is behind an attempt to steal an advanced reconnaissance aircraft from a military airfield in Fife have not been helped by the death of the would-be thief.

An unwanted complication comes via a telephone call from Monique Dubois in MI5 in London. An operation she’s been running in Glasgow has gone badly wrong and she wants him to intervene before it’s entirely compromised.

Worse still, an investigation into a murder at the Commando Basic Training Centre in the Highlands takes a grim turn and Bob is drawn in personally. In Lochaber, the present war intersects with another conflict that took place two centuries earlier: with deadly consequences.

Arachnid Press

04/10/2025

03/10/2025

02/10/2025

01/10/2025

30/09/2025

29/09/2025

28/09/2025

27/09/2025

26/09/2025

25/09/2025

24/09/2025

23/09/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category