Arachnid Press

Arachnid Press Arachnid Press is an independent Scottish publisher.

Relentless pursuit and a grisly murder. ‘Hide and Seek’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Stirling Castle and more widely ...
29/09/2026

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.

This modern image shows Kyle of Lochalsh railway station, the terminus of the Kyle Line across northern Scotland. The station has an important part to play in the story as it builds towards its climax.

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?

Can somewhere be loved to death? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is a fast-paced contemporary murder mystery se...
28/09/2026

Can somewhere be loved to death? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is a fast-paced contemporary murder mystery set in Edinburgh and northern Scotland.

The Kylesku Bridge in Sutherland must be one of the most beautiful examples of the bridge-builder's art anywhere in the world. It opened in 1984 and appears in the story as well as on the cover.

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

In a chilling echo of an event five decades earlier, a light aircraft takes off from a small Scottish airfield and doesn’t return. What caused its one-way flight out over the Atlantic? Callum and Jenny Anderson are asked to investigate.

Meanwhile, someone is trying to deter the developers of the of the Sutherland Viking Haven, a major tourist attraction being built near Kylesku. Who? And could they also be behind the rise in incidents of damage to the vehicles of inconsiderate or irresponsible users of the North Coast 500?

Events take a very sinister turn when a body is found in a burned-out shop in Inverness. And then there’s another killing. It becomes clear that for Callum and Jenny, the risks are coming ever closer to home.

You can’t ask a dead man who pulled the trigger. ‘A Tangled Web’ is a fast-paced contemporary thriller set in northern S...
27/09/2026

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 beach at Oldshoremore in Sutherland is one of the most magnificent beaches anywhere. It is close to the home of one of the central characters and serves as a backdrop to the story as it develops. The beach also appears on the cover of the book.

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.

One broch, two millennia, three murders. ‘Thicker Than Water’ is a compelling murder mystery set in northern Scotland.Th...
26/09/2026

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

The Castle of Old Wick enjoys a spectacular location above cliffs on the coast south of Wick in Caithness. It is visited by the book’s central characters as their hunt for a killer gathers pace.

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.

Can somewhere be loved to death? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is a fast-paced contemporary murder mystery se...
25/09/2026

Can somewhere be loved to death? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is a fast-paced contemporary murder mystery set in Edinburgh and northern Scotland.

The central characters visit Chanonry Point on the Black Isle to watch the Moray Firth dolphins at the end of the book.

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

In a chilling echo of an event five decades earlier, a light aircraft takes off from a small Scottish airfield and doesn’t return. What caused its one-way flight out over the Atlantic? Callum and Jenny Anderson are asked to investigate.

Meanwhile, someone is trying to deter the developers of the of the Sutherland Viking Haven, a major tourist attraction being built near Kylesku. Who? And could they also be behind the rise in incidents of damage to the vehicles of inconsiderate or irresponsible users of the North Coast 500?

Events take a very sinister turn when a body is found in a burned-out shop in Inverness. And then there’s another killing. It becomes clear that for Callum and Jenny, the risks are coming ever closer to home.

Is your enemy’s enemy always your friend? ‘Friend or Foe?’ is a fast-paced thriller set largely in south-west Scotland d...
24/09/2026

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

This modern image shows part of Cairnryan in Galloway. The village has an important part to play in the book as the search 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?

When the past comes back to haunt you. ‘The Danger of Life’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland during World War Tw...
23/09/2026

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.

Can somewhere be loved to death? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is a fast-paced contemporary murder mystery se...
22/09/2026

Can somewhere be loved to death? Ken Lussey’s new novel ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is a fast-paced contemporary murder mystery set in Edinburgh and northern Scotland.

Ullapool in Wester Ross has a background role in the story as it moves towards its dramatic climax and is visited by the two central characters.

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

In a chilling echo of an event five decades earlier, a light aircraft takes off from a small Scottish airfield and doesn’t return. What caused its one-way flight out over the Atlantic? Callum and Jenny Anderson are asked to investigate.

Meanwhile, someone is trying to deter the developers of the of the Sutherland Viking Haven, a major tourist attraction being built near Kylesku. Who? And could they also be behind the rise in incidents of damage to the vehicles of inconsiderate or irresponsible users of the North Coast 500?

Events take a very sinister turn when a body is found in a burned-out shop in Inverness. And then there’s another killing. It becomes clear that for Callum and Jenny, the risks are coming ever closer to home.

How far would you go to right a wrong? ‘The House With 46 Chimneys’ is a spooky adventure story for younger readers invo...
21/09/2026

How far would you go to right a wrong? ‘The House With 46 Chimneys’ is a spooky adventure story for younger readers involving a two-century-old family mystery and the haunting of Dunmore Park, a ruined house in central Scotland.

This distant view of the ruins of Dunmore Park shows the sheer size of the house - and over half the remaining chimneys that give 'The House With 46 Chimneys' its title.

Available as a paperback, Kindle, Kobo or Apple. Find out more on our website:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-h46c/index.html

Life changes dramatically for Kaleb, Jude and Sequoia when they move to live with their aunt in a rural corner of central Scotland. But then life is changing dramatically for everyone. It’s the beginning of April 2020, the early days of the coronavirus lockdown. The roads are nearly empty of cars and the blue skies almost clear of aeroplanes.

Three local children they meet – in a socially distanced way – draw them into a two-century-old family mystery involving the haunting of the nearby ruins of Dunmore Park, 'The House With 46 Chimneys'. As the book builds to its climax, the children are faced with a decision. Do they try to right a wrong that was done in 1828, a wrong that has had consequences ever since? Or is doing so simply too dangerous?

How many deaths to end a war? ‘Eyes Turned Skywards’ is a fast-paced thriller set mainly in northern Scotland during Wor...
20/09/2026

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.

This modern image shows Dunrobin Castle railway station in Sutherland. It was built as a private station for Dunrobin Castle in 1902 and now serves as a seasonal request stop on the Far North Line. The station plays a background role as the story builds towards its climax.

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.

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