It is Easter Day, and a body hangs crucified on a tree. Unlike the Master whom Tobias serves, it will not rise from the dead. Naked except for a loincloth and a crown of thorns, the victim is unrecognisable, his face bludgeoned to a pulp.

Hangman's Brae is a vividly written account of the blood-curdling crimes and brutal forms of punishment of north-east Scotland. The book explores the area's underworld and features the grave-robbers, jail-breakers, rioters and other lawbreakers whose crimes led them to premature deaths at the end of a rope or at the not so delicate hands of The Maiden, a gruesome decapitating device predating the French guillotine. The stories of the men who enforced the law and meted out sentences to the ne'er-do-wells who broke it can be just as interesting and memorable as those of the criminals and Norman Adams introduces the reader to some of them. Here you'll find some real characters such as the Aberdeenshire sheriff and criminal officer who always got his man - once spending two chilling nights chained to a brutal murderer and rapist. And it wasn't just hangings that these men had to perform - their grisly work also involved execution by beheading and drowning, often with some witch-burning for good measure. The many true-crime cases in this book shed new light on just how violent and bloody the north-east of Scotland's past was.

Every culture has some type of figure of Death. The Grim Reaper who collects souls as they lie dying. For some he is the cruel face of an end come too soon, for others a gentle healer of life lived too long. But there is another face to this spectural figure. Death walks through the world, helping those souls that linger between this world and the next, those trapped by circumstance, wish, desire or loss. So many souls linger needing but a gentle voice and hand to help them move past the final moments of their lives. This collection contains 15 tales of beings who either know not that they are dead or just how to move on. This book collects together 14 previous published short stories and includes one totally new story.

The Chaplain of the Fleet is a book by Walter Besant. Contents: How We Returned To The Polite World. How We Went To The Wells. How Nancy Reckoned Up The Company. How Kitty Went To Her First Ball. How Kitty Wore Her Crown. How The Doctor Wrote To Kitty and more.