Tales macabre and tales bizarre. All of them with murder in mind. This is the compendium volume of Molly Whittington-Egan's evocative and highly readable series of murder cases, The Stockbridge Baby Farmer and Scottish Murder Stories. Written in a frequently witty and irreverent style, these stories confirm that while the world has moved on, the human mind still deals with murder in the same old fashioned way with motives which have rarely changed over the years.
The 36 tales are:
1. The Stockbridge Baby-Farmer: Jessie King, 1888;
2. 'I am Gall': Peter Queen, 1931;
3. The Half-Mutchkin: Edinburgh Brothel Case, 1823;
4. To the Lighthouse: Robert Dickson, 1960;
5. Mr Kello's Sunday Morning Service: John Kello, 1570;
6. The Whiteinch Atrocities: The McArthur Murder, 1904; Helen and William Harkness, 1921;
7. Death of a Hermit: George Shaw and George Dunn, 1952;
8. The Light-Headed Cutty: Mary Smith; aka 'The Wife o'Denside', 1826;
9. The Postman Knocked: Stanislav Myszka, 1947;
10. Brutality: James Keenan, 1969;
11. Rurality: James Robb, 1849; George Christie, 1852;
12. The Northfield Mystery: Helen and William Watt, 1756;
13. Blue Vitriol: Kate Humphrey, 1830; Anne Inglis, 1795;
14. The Battered Bride: John Adam, 1835;
15. The Babes in the Quarry: Patrick Higgins, 1911;
16. The Poisonous Puddocks: George Thom, 1821;
17. The Tram Ride: Alexander Edmonstone, 1969;
18. The Tooth Fiend: Gordon Hay, 1967;
19. The Icing on the Shortbread: Thomas Mathieson Brown, 1906;
20. The Misted Mountain, The Arran Case, 1889;
21. The German Tea Planter, Broughty Ferry, 1912;
22. The Late Mr Toad, The Musselburgh Case, 1911;
23. 'Oh, Loch Maree!', William Laurie King, Edinburgh, 1924;
24. The Running Girl, Christina Gilmour, 1843;
25. The Travelling Man, Hugh Macleod, 1830;
26. The Naked Ghost, Sgt Arthur Davies, 1749;
27. The Cinderella Syndrome, Bertie Wilcox, 1929;
28. 'Holly Willie', William Bennison, 1850;
29. A Tryst With Dr Smith, The St Fergus Case, 1853;
30. The Wild Geese, the Saunders Case, 1913;
31. The French Schoolmaster's Wife, Eugene Marie Chantrelle, 1878;
32 The Ice-Field, the Arran Stowaways,1868;
33. The Toad in the Tunnel, The Garvie Case, 1968;
34. Bible John, the Barrowland Ballroom Killings, 1968-9;
35. Jock the Ripper, William Henry Bury, 1889;
36 The Quest for Norah, the Farnario Case, 1929.
These stories will delight all true-crime buffs looking for strange stories from north of the Border.
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