Lindsay Campbell – författare

Argyll in the late 1700s wasn't so different to modern day. In this truly historic county, criminals of old walked the same canal path we do, stood on the same doorsteps, travelled the same ferry routes and looked on the same hills as they died that we look on today. The walls which held the criminals still stand, the legal system, which prosecuted them is recognisable, even the names reverberate into modern Argyll.But from the hills of Ardnamurchan and the vast scenery of the Blackmount to the glittering sands of Kintyre and beyond, these 18 new true tales of historic crime recount scenes, thankfully unrecognisable to modern Argyll residents, featuring muggings and murders, violent thefts, an old soldier's death, a disabled boy accused of killing a neighbour, a family of slippery thieves or the truth behind the last hangings in Argyll. These are the stories, previously untold, behind so many crimes hidden deep in the old records; old records which still smell of slate-dust, candle-smoke and charcoal from the original courtroom. The characters who sat in judgement there, the men who went in search of the criminals, and the surgeons who helped the victims are here introduced, while the past which almost touches the present so many times in old Argyll, is brought straight onto the page for readers.Blood and Battery is a parcel of new research about new historic crimes (some tragic, some thought-provoking, but all enlightening) and a colourful account of 66 years in a slowly modernising, but still criminal-ridden world of west coast industry, rural communities and government officialdom.

Life in old Argyll was never quite as peaceful as the picturesque hills and glens seem to make us think. Despite the efforts of respectable parish and police constables, the magistrates and court officials in their fine new jail and the Industrial Revolution on the horizon, this dip into Argyll's history tells how crime in the county was just as bloody and violent as in former eras. Here are tales of murder on the shores of Seil or Islay, a gentleman's scrap in a Tobermory inn and a gun-toting Oban doctor, a battle for illicit whisky at Kilchrenan, a bloody end to a Kintyre shinty match, women peddling fake coins (and something even more doubtful!) with an exciting chase on the Crinan canal, and a final story of a violent death, a bloody razor and the tragic end of a Lochgilphead school-teacher. The blood still runs in old Argyll.

Argyll in the late Victorian era was home to as many criminals as it always has been, despite an experienced and proactive police force. The historic little towns where both police and criminals worked stood then much as they do now, although some of the crime sites (a crofter’s cottage, a tenement or a village of huts) are ruined or hugely changed. The coming of the railways brought another crime wave from the hard-working, hard-drinking labourers who built it, while an emerging awareness of forensics resulted in many successes in crime-fighting.Here are 18 tales of bloody murder, arson, assault and theft from the Ross of Mull and Kintyre to the Bridge of Awe and Dunoon, including petty crimes from youthful criminals, a clumsy butler with a lit candle, a vengeful landowner or cottagers, a drunken train traveller with a rifle, farmers fighting in a railway carriage or quarriers at the foot of Ben Cruachan, a secluded farmhouse and a grumpy teenager too handy with a box of matches, and finally the tale of three men the worse for alcohol, a tragic scene one June night and a humble memorial at a murder site.Watch your backs – PC Mac has handcuffs now.