Ken Lussey is the author of ten novels and a four-decade-old guide to hitch-hiking. His latest novels, ‘Thicker Than Water’ and ‘The Eye of Horus’ are, respectively, a compelling murder mystery set in northern Scotland and an atmospheric World War Two thriller with settings that move from the Highlands of Scotland via Gibraltar to Malta.

Ken 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.