Arachnid Press, 91 Columbia Avenue, Livingston (2025)

14/02/2025

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.

This modern wide-angle view shows the Osborne Hotel in Valletta. The two central characters stay here while in Malta and although two storeys have been added to the building since 1943, it would be very recognisable to them.

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.

13/02/2025

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.

Dunrobin Castle stands on a prominent bluff set a little back from the shore a mile north-east of Golspie in Sutherland and its sometimes dark story is deeply entwined with that of the Earls, and later the Dukes, of Sutherland. The book’s two central characters stay at the castle as it becomes a temporary military headquarters.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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.

12/02/2025

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.

The magnificently curving Kylesku Bridge in Sutherland replaced the Kylesku Ferry - or a 100-mile detour via Lairg - when it opened in 1984. It is crossed and admired several times in the story and has a small but significant part to play near the end of the book.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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?

11/02/2025

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 Stones of Stenness on Orkney's West Mainland are just a part of a ring of 12 tall stones and a surrounding ditch placed here between 3000BC and 2500BC. They have changed little since November 1942, when they were visited by three of the characters in ‘Bloody Orkney’.

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.

10/02/2025

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.

Stirling Castle is shown at its best in this photograph of it taken from the west, sitting on top of the remarkable piece of volcanic rock that helps give it such a sense of impregnability. Several elements of the castle visible here have parts to play in the story.

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?

09/02/2025

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

Oldshoremore in north-west Sutherland – this is nearby Blairmore - has an important role in the book as the story develops.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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.

08/02/2025

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.

This modern image shows a view across the busy harbour at Marsaxlokk in Malta. The prologue is set here and the village and harbour are visited by the two central characters as the story builds towards its climax.

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.

07/02/2025

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.

This modern image shows Lochmore Cottage on Loch More, in the remote heart of Caithness, with the River Thurso in the foreground. The cottage and loch both have significant roles in the story.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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.

06/02/2025

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.

The mysterious Torwood Blue Pool can be found about two miles north-west of the town of Denny. It is probably the top of an old colliery air shaft and is visited by the book’s young characters as they get to know the area around their new home.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-h46c/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-h46c/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.

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?

05/02/2025

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.

Sandwood Cottage, near Sandwood Bay in Sutherland, has an important part to play as the story builds towards its climax. The cottage is seen here before the far end collapsed and the rest was fenced off on safety grounds.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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?

04/02/2025

A city at peace in a world at war. ‘The Stockholm Run’ is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland and Sweden during World War Two. It uses many real settings, transported eight decades back in time.

RAF Grangemouth, once the Central Scotland Airport but now largely gone, is amongst the Scottish locations used in the book. This modern photograph shows the end of one of two large hangars that seem to be all that remain of the airfield buildings. They have survived through being reused as part of an industrial estate.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-tsr/index.html
Buy the paperback edition here:
https://www.arachnid.scot/book-tsr/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 March 1943. The death of an intruder reveals a hidden military bunker at Dundas Castle near Edinburgh, a living relic of an anti-invasion scheme from earlier in the war. Bob Sutherland and the Military Intelligence 11 team follow a trail that leads to a much larger secret, buried beneath Edinburgh Castle.

As the mystery in Edinburgh unravels, Bob Sutherland and Monique Dubois are sent to Stockholm, a city supposedly at peace in a world at war. There they are to take delivery of a message of critical national importance.

Or is it all a carefully crafted trap? Both encounter ghosts from the past in Sweden. Can their relationship survive what they uncover? Will they live long enough for that to matter?

03/02/2025

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

Wick, on the east coast of Caithness, is where significant parts of the story are set and the central characters visit frequently as their hunt for a murderer builds towards its climax.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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.

02/02/2025

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.

This modern photograph shows the Balmoral Hotel, which is a familiar sight in Edinburgh today. Until a few decades ago it was called the North British Hotel and it plays a cameo role in ‘Bloody Orkney’ when, in November 1942, Bob and Monique spend an idyllic weekend here between visits to Orkney.

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.

01/02/2025

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.

This modern image shows Eilean Donan Castle near Dornie on Loch Duich. The castle has a background role 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?

31/01/2025

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.

This modern image shows the Magistral Palace in Fort St Angelo. The fort stands guard over the Grand Harbour and was the Royal Navy’s wartime headquarters in Malta. The Magistral Palace is visited by the two central characters as the story builds towards its climax.

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.

30/01/2025

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 fictional Culkein Drumbeg Castle is located on a tidal island near Drumbeg on the Assynt coastal road and plays an important part in the book as the story builds towards its climax. Physically the castle is closely based on the real Castle Tioram, a hundred miles to the south-west. Here we see its interior.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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.

29/01/2025

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.

Beyond the western end of Loch Arkaig are the remains of Tigh nan Saighdearan, 'The Soldiers' House', which was one of a number of small barracks built immediately following the Jacobite uprising of 1745-46. A pivotal event in the manhunt at the heart of the story takes place here.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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.

28/01/2025

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.

This modern image shows Fort George, on the south shore of the Moray Firth, north-east of Inverness. The central characters arrive here in bizarre circumstances before recruiting help and heading north again.

Berriedale, on the east coast of Caithness, close to where the Berriedale Water flows into the sea. This is where Bob Sutherland’s search for answers reaches its dramatic conclusion.

Find out more and buy the eBook as a Kindle, Kobo or Apple:
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.

Arachnid Press