The 15th July 1889 was a busy day on the Isle of Arran as it was Fair Monday. A number of visitors opted to climb Goatfell though many were put off by the cloud lingering on the summit. It seemed a day like any other, but that evening there would be an tragic event which would lead to one of the biggest man-hunts in Scottish criminal history, as well as a sensational murder trial. Two of the people who set out to climb the mountain that afternoon were John Watson Laurie, a 28-year-old pattern-maker from Coatbridge, and Edwin Robert Rose, a 32-year-old clerk from London. They had met three days previously on the excursion steamer Ivanhoe. Rose’s battered body, ‘the face terribly mangled’, was found three weeks later concealed under a boulder on a remote part of the mountain. The discovery sparked a huge search for Laurie who was subsequently arrested for Rose’s murder after two months on the run. When captured he attempted suicide with a cut-throat razor, then stated: ‘I robbed the man, but I did not murder him.’ This is the story of the Goatfell tragedy and its aftermath, described by the Glasgow Herald as ‘the most remarkable tale of crime and retribution in the annals of Scottish judicial history’.

Although the nineteenth-century elite looked on the Highlands and Islands as a sporting paradise, for the indigenous population it was a turbulent place. Rather than a rural idyll, the glens and moors were home to poachers and whisky smugglers, while the towns were always ready to explode into riot and disorder. Even the Hebridean seas had their dangers while the islands seethed with discontent. Whisky Wars, Riots and Murder reveals the reality behind the facade of romantic tartan and vast estates. Augmenting the usual quota of petty thefts and assaults, the Highlands had a coastal town where riots were endemic, an island rocked by a triple murder, a mob besieging the jail at Dornoch and religious troubles in the Black Isle. Add the charming thief who targeted tourist hotels and an Exciseman who was hanged for forgery, and the hidden history of the Highlands is unearthed in all its unique detail.

Explore the enchanting islands of Scotland with this absorbing and beautiful guide. Around the coast of Scotland there are hundreds of islands, from bare, rugged skerries to lush dominions of history and deep-rooted culture. Each offers a unique haven to explore, whether you enjoy sparkling-white sandy beaches, miles of untouched land beneath your feet, nature-spotting among otters, puffins, seals and more, sampling the finest whisky and cheeses, or learning more about Scotland's history. Exploring Scotland's Islands describes the main island groups in all their moods, and focuses on what gives these islands such magical and lasting appeal. This book is a glorious celebration in words, maps, illustrations and photographs of some of the most superb scenery in Scotland. Discover why these unique isles draw those lucky enough to find them back to visit whenever they can. Among captivating descriptive text and beautiful photography, Exploring Scotland's Islands also provides the reader with essential visitor information such as transport links, the most inspiring visitor attractions and sights to see, cafés and restaurants not to be missed, and where you can stay to make your visits all the more special.

Bruce Murphy's Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery is a comprehensive guide to the genre of the murder mystery that catalogues thousands of items in a broad range of categories: authors, titles, plots, characters, weapons, methods of killing, movie and theatrical adaptations. What distinguishes this encyclopedia from the others in the field is its critical stance.

A new series of the Scottish antiquary established 1886.

A Scottish historian provides an original, fascinating, and comprehensive account of the Isle of Arran from the prehistoric era to the 20th-century. Arran is an archaeological and geological treasure trove of stunning scenic beauty. Its history stretches back more than five thousand years to the great stone circles, whose remnants still decorate the plains of Machrie. Runic inscriptions tell of a Viking occupation lasting centuries. Later, in 1307, King Robert the Bruce began his triumphant comeback from Arran. Subsequently, the island was repeatedly caught up and devastated in the savage dynastic struggles of medieval Scotland. After the 1707 Parliamentary Union, came a new and strange upheaval: Arran became a testing ground for the Industrial Revolution. The ancient ‘runrig’ style of farming gave way to enclosed fields and labor-saving methods, which eventually lead to the socially disastrous Highland Clearances. The misfortune of the times was culminated by the Great Irish Potato Famine of 1845. At last, the area settled into a stable mixture of agriculture and tourism in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Criminoloogist Robin Odell has compiled this gruesome gallery of cases from all over the world, revealing the growth in serial slayings, contract killings and middle-class murders and investigating what motivates people to commit the ultimate crime. As well as gangsters and ordinary felons, the book includes doctors, millionaries, housewives, children, lawyers, accountants, officers and gentlemen who have succumbed to the killing instinct. Behind the sensational names concocted by the tabloid press - 'Boston Strangler', 'Dracula Killer', 'Night Stalker', 'Granny Killer' - lurk real murderers committing acts of violence in circumstances often more bizarre than fiction. Arranged in an easy-to-use A-Z format, the book contains over 500 cases from serial killers such as Dennis Nilsen and Ted Bundy, to those such as Jeremy Bamber and Steven Benson who dispatched their parents for money; from murderous New Zealand teenagers whose story made a successful film, to the many doctors and nurses who took life instead of saving it; from unsolved murders such as the murder of Little Gregory in France to the paid assignments of John Waynes Hearn, a Vietnam veteran who killed to order. The result is a classic of true crime, a definitive work on murder as a worldwide phenomenon.

This chilling collection of murderous tales brings together forty-seven cases spanning two centuries, all of which were committed in Scotland.Among the shocking crimes featured here is the case of an Edinburgh baby farmer hanged in 1889; the controversial killing of a wealthy Glasgow spinster in 1908; the shooting of a Detective Inspector during a failed attempt to rescue a convict from a prison van in Glasgow in 1921; and the summary execution of a German POW at the hands of his fellow Nazi prisoners in Comrie, Perthshire in 1944.This well-illustrated and enthralling book will appeal to everyone interested in true crime and the shadier side of Scotland’s past.

Off the western seaboard of Scotland are hundreds of islands. Beginning on Arran, Jonny Muir sets out to explore these places with a single ambition: to reach the St Kilda archipelago, the islands at the edge of the world. On the way he attempts to finds his inner peace on Holy Island, takes part in a punishing foot race across the mountains of Jura, confronts the Inaccessible Pinnacle on Skye and walks the white-sand beach on Berneray. He encounters sharks and whales, discovers gory histories and follows in the footsteps of Boswell and Johnson, but island life is not without its challenges. 'Man-eating' midges live up to their reputation on Rum. An Atlantic storm threatens to rip his tent to shreds on Barra. Wicked weather lashes the Outer Hebrides, leaving his prospects of reaching St Kilda balanced on a knife-edge. An intensely personal account of a journey through some of Britain's most extraordinary landscapes. Complete with twenty five beautiful colour plates.