Whisky, Wars, Riots and Murder

Crime in the 19th Century Highlands and Islands

The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are full of iconic places, beautiful 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 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 on 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 and Islands is unearthed in all its unique detail. Whisky Wars, Riots and Murder is a fascinating account of life as it really was in the nineteenth-century Highlands and Islands as the forces of law and order battled to bring peace to a troubled land.