Bloody Orkney by Ken Lussey
'Bloody Orkney' is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland during World War Two.
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.
About the author.
Ken Lussey’s social media profiles describe him as an ‘author, photographer, traveller, husband, father, grandfather and lover of all things Scottish.’ He lives in Livingston with his wife Maureen and together they run the tourism website ‘Undiscovered Scotland’. He returned to writing a few years ago after a three-decade break. Ken's latest novel, published by Arachnid Press, is 'Bloody Orkney' and is the third in his series of thrillers set in Scotland during World War Two. Its two predecessors, 'Eyes Turned Skywards' and 'The Danger of Life' were published in 2018 and 2019 by Fledgling Press. He has also written 'The House With 46 Chimneys', an 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 by Arachnid Press.
Review
‘Bloody Orkney’ is a fast paced, fascinating piece of historical fiction that had me fixated from the get-go! This is a book that is packed with historical realism and elicits a vivid picture of the past, one that I was completely unaware of. I was a social historian at university and I didn't pay that much attention to military history and I was shocked by how Orkney was impacted by the war. I knew about the Italian prisoners but I had no idea about the huge scale of the presence of the armed forces there. But on top of this, you have the mystery section of the book and this makes a great marriage of narratives to create an atmosphere that would be hard to top!
MI11 has been tasked with looking into the security arrangements up in the Isles of Orkney, which during the war is the largest gathering of naval vessels in the world. Bob and his team believe this will be an easy task but when they arrive in Kirkwall they are informed about a murder which may have resulted from a break down in security protocols. Then Bob bumps into a face from his past and he is very worried that something bad is happening on Orkney. Bob and Madame Dubois are also called to Lossiemouth to help with a life and death situation in a secret testing facility. When they return to Orkney they walk straight into a high stakes situation with the bad guys willing to do.anything to hide what's going on!
It was hard for me to keep everyone’s characters in my head to begin with as I'm so unfamiliar with armed forces ranks that I got a hot confused on who was who. When I got that all set in my head the story began to fly for me! See what I did there?! I really related to the concept of ‘Orkneyitis’ as my dad used to live in Caithness and man the boredom does set in! I enjoyed getting to know more about Bob and seeing his relationship with Madame Dubois progressing in a positive manner and building on from the last book. I loved getting to know some of the history from this period though. It was fascinating seeing the social side for me i.e. the black market, the building of the causeways, how people used their leisure periods etc. Plus, the mystery definitely kept you on the edge of your seat! By the end, I was racing through the book as events became so fast-paced that I just needed to know what happened!
This is an awesome piece of historical fiction and if you love military stories than this will blow you away! Let me know if you read it!
