Meet the author

Lisa Thompson.

Writer · United Kingdom

Lisa Thompson: author of The Goldfish Boy, whose gripping middle-grade mysteries handle anxiety, OCD and grief with rare empathy and never a slack plot.

Lisa Thompson is an English children's author from Havering who worked at the BBC before her bestselling debut, The Goldfish Boy, in which a boy whose severe OCD keeps him housebound becomes the last person to see a missing toddler alive and must solve the mystery from behind his bedroom window. It stands as one of the most empathetic portraits of childhood OCD in middle-grade fiction. Its companion mysteries, The Magpie Riddle and The Skeleton Puzzle, return to the young detectives of Chestnut Close for twisty whodunnits about riddles, buried secrets and learning who you can trust. Across her work Thompson pairs a genuine page-turning plot with quiet, honest attention to anxiety, grief and families under strain, treating mental health with rare care while never letting the mystery slacken.