The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are full of iconic places, glorious landscapes and flourishing wildlife, but its past has seen horrifying and brutal crime of all sorts.


Nineteenth-century life in the Highlands was not easy. Rather than a rural idyll, the glens and moors were home to poachers and whisky smugglers, while the towns were often 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 goes behind the facade of romantic tartan and vast estates. There was the usual quota of petty thefts and assaults, but the Highlands also had a coastal town where riots were endemic, an island rocked by a triple murder, a mob beseiging the jail at Dornoch and religious troubles on the Black Isle.


Not to mention the charming thief who targeted tourist hotels and the exciseman who was hanged for forgery! Here, the hidden history of the Highlands and Islands is unearthed in all its unique and terrible detail.