Ken Lussey Author

Ken Lussey

Ken Lussey spent his first 17 years following his family around the world; his father was a Royal Air Force navigator. This was a process involving seven schools and a dozen different postal addresses. He went to Hull University in 1975, where he spent much of his time hitch-hiking around Great Britain, met his wife Maureen and did just enough actual work to gain a reasonable degree in philosophy, that most useful of subjects!

Before getting a 'proper job', he researched and wrote 'A Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Great Britain', which was published by Penguin Books in 1983. He spent the next couple of decades as a civil servant, during which time he fulfilled the long-held ambition of moving to Scotland. In more recent times he has helped Maureen establish the website 'Undiscovered Scotland' as the ultimate online guide to Scotland and come full circle by returning to writing.

Ken's latest novel, published by Arachnid Press in September 2024, is 'Thicker Than Water', a compelling murder mystery set in northern Scotland. It follows on from his two contemporary thrillers set in the same area, 'The High Road' and 'A Tangled Web', both published in 2023. The sixth in his series of thrillers set in Scotland and beyond during World War Two, 'The Eye of Horus', was published in June 2024 and has settings that move from the Highlands of Scotland via Gibraltar to Malta. Its five predecessors, 'Eyes Turned Skywards', 'The Danger of Life', 'Bloody Orkney', 'The Stockholm Run', and 'Hide and Seek', were published between 2018 and 2023. Ken has also written 'The House With 46 Chimneys', a spooky adventure story for younger readers set in central Scotland against the background of the early days of the coronavirus lockdown. This was published in late 2020.

Thanks to Carolyn Henry Photography for these photographs. The first was taken at the RAF Grangemouth memorial in Grangemouth. The fictional Bob Sutherland served here briefly as a pilot early in World War Two and the airfield is visited in two of Ken's World War Two thrillers, so it seems a fitting backdrop. The collection of images was taken at the Angus BookFest in Montrose on 18 November 2023 where Ken appeared on an authors' panel.

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The Eye of Horus

'The Eye of Horus' is an atmospheric World War Two thriller with settings that move from the Highlands of Scotland via Gibraltar to Malta.

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.

'The Eye of Horus' was published by Arachnid Press on 18 June 2024. The cover design is the work of Carolyn Henry Photography.

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Thicker Than Water

'Thicker Than Water' is a compelling murder mystery set in northern Scotland.

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.

'Thicker Than Water' will be published as an eBook by Arachnid Press on 15 September 2024. The cover design is the work of Carolyn Henry Photography

• Buy the Kindle edition from Amazon.
• Buy the eBook from Kobo.
• Buy the eBook from Apple.
• Find out more about 'A Tangled Web' on my page about the book, with reviews and links to background information and excerpts.
• Or you can view photographs of locations used in the book here.

• Buy Kindle
• Buy Kobo
• Buy Apple