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Blood Across The Water
True tales of blood, brutality and betrayal from the Highlands and Islands, from the best selling author of Blood Beneath Ben Nevis.
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Published March 8, 2023
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About the author
Mark Bridgeman
22 books11 followersMark Bridgeman was born in Swindon, Wiltshire and is now based in Highland Perthshire, Scotland. After a career working in Finance, Marketing and Sports Coaching, he has now turned his passion for writing, crime fiction and non-fiction, history and sport into words. Mark's first book "The River Runs Red" is now available. A history of true crime in Highland Perthshire, the book has proved an immediate success.
Surviving In The Shadows and Blood Beneath Ben Nevis were released in March 2020 to great reviews.
The Lost Village of Lawers followed in September 2020 and became an instant success.
Mark also contributed a series of short stories to the West Highland Museum website and to his own blog.
As featured on the BBC, The Beacon On The Hill was released in December 2020, taking up the story of Christ Church in Swindon, following on from a book originally written by Mark's late father. In May 2021, Mark released The Dark Side of the Dales (a series of true crime stories from the Yorkshire Dales) and Footsteps at Finlarig, the history of Finlarig Castle in Killin. Both books were well reviewed and proved instant successes.
Mark is currently working on two other projects for release in 2022 and has appeared at several book festivals, on ITV, Channel 5, BBC Radio, and the History Channel.
Surviving In The Shadows and Blood Beneath Ben Nevis were released in March 2020 to great reviews.
The Lost Village of Lawers followed in September 2020 and became an instant success.
Mark also contributed a series of short stories to the West Highland Museum website and to his own blog.
As featured on the BBC, The Beacon On The Hill was released in December 2020, taking up the story of Christ Church in Swindon, following on from a book originally written by Mark's late father. In May 2021, Mark released The Dark Side of the Dales (a series of true crime stories from the Yorkshire Dales) and Footsteps at Finlarig, the history of Finlarig Castle in Killin. Both books were well reviewed and proved instant successes.
Mark is currently working on two other projects for release in 2022 and has appeared at several book festivals, on ITV, Channel 5, BBC Radio, and the History Channel.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 21, 2024
“The history of the Highlands speaks to us of a turbulent and violent past . . . This collection of true tales details the harsh reality of life in the Highlands.” (from the Introduction)
This is the second book by Mark Bridgeman bringing to the fore true tales from the Highlands of Scotland, mostly from Lochaber (the Fort William area, near Ben Nevis), where I grew up. The first story takes place in Barra, where I live now. This makes it a little hard to judge how the book would feel for someone not familiar with the area, but there is usually an explanation of where named places are, and each of the accounts makes for a good read.
The first chapter gives the detail of one of the most famous shipwrecks off Barra, the emigrant ship The Annie Jane, which ran aground in Barra’s adjacent island of Vatersay, in 1853. Mark Bridgeman has researched minutely the overcrowded conditions under which the ship sailed, the detail of the shipwreck itself and the claims that the islanders did little to help the few survivors, accounts of which vary. What is incontestable, and recognised by the author, is that the islanders themselves had very little to give.
The next story, “The Crown Versus the Ainslie Brothers” homes in on the town of Fort William, where two respectable merchants were involved in a killing. Several of the stories delve into the judicial procedures of Scottish courts. For me the most interesting part here was the reluctance of Scottish jurors to cause someone to be sentenced to death, meaning that they were unlikely to bring a verdict of guilty to premeditated murder where there was any doubt at all. A trial for “culpable homicide” could, however, work against the accused, who might have been exonerated from a charge of murder but who would be more likely to be imprisoned for a lesser charge.
The killing in “The Body in The Bracken” took place just where I am staying as I write this, and throws light on the harsh life led by travelling people in the Highlands a century and a quarter ago, while “Murdered for One Pound” tells of a man who, in times of indescribable poverty in Barra, left the island “rather than be dragooned onto one of John Gordon’s emigrant ships to Canada”. (Gordon of Cluny and his daughter-in-law, Lady Gordon Cathcart, were notoriously cruel owners of the island in the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, responsible for forced clearances, and the deaths of many emigrants from starvation when they reached Canada, where no arrangements had been made for them).
The following stories centre on Ben Nevis and its dangers, and on accounts of robberies and murders in Lochaber, although one of these extended to the Cairngorms, specifically the villages of Nethy Bridge and Coylumbridge, through which I happened to be driving the next day. It all felt very real, especially as this is the week before Christmas, and this particular murder took place on Christmas Eve.
Another Christmas mystery, when three experienced keepers disappeared from the Flannan Isles lighthouse off the Island of Lewis, provided more detail on that story than I have read before. Mark Bridgeman researches everything very carefully, and devotes the next section of this book to another famous mystery, the secret of what happened to the lost treasure of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746, after his army was defeated at The Battle of Culloden. Mr Bridgeman’s earlier book, Blood Beneath Ben Nevis was the inspiration for renewed interest in the search for the treasure, and in this second volume, after going into more detail on the Prince’s wanderings through the Highlands and Islands as a hunted man, he provides an update on the search and some actual information on what happened to a large part of the treasure – an amazing discovery, after this mystery has baffled people for almost three hundred years.
A return to the accounts of more killings and police and judicial procedures brings the book to a close, except for one chapter that I’m glad I read in daylight, entitled Ghosts of Lochaber, which even includes some recent and well-verified happenings in a nearby hotel. I’ll make sure I never stay there! Yes, I swallowed them whole, all the heavy footsteps with no one present, all the invisible opening and closing of doors, even an unseen presence holding the guests down in their bed! My favourite story was of the elderly lady who at one point bought the hotel . . . I’d better not spoil that story! I think that what contributes to the atmosphere of this building in terms of ghostly tales is its dark past. It provided accommodation for government troops hunting down Highlanders who transgressed against the laws introduced after Culloden forbidding the wearing of the kilt and the use of Gaelic, as well as all firearms, of course. Highlanders were hunted down without mercy. The hotel is next to the site of the hanging of an innocent man, James Stewart, for the alleged murder of the notorious “Red Fox” . . . , Colin Campbell. it’s the historical background to all of these tales that make them so powerful, and so compelling. It was a hard and back-breaking existence for many people, with little or no prospect of improvement. That environment shapes the tales, and the tragedies of Lochaber’s history still haunt its inhabitants today. It’s a place which, despite its present reliance on tourism, does not forget its past. Even the name of Fort William is a reminder of oppression and suffering. Mark Bridgeman does full justice to his subject.
This is the second book by Mark Bridgeman bringing to the fore true tales from the Highlands of Scotland, mostly from Lochaber (the Fort William area, near Ben Nevis), where I grew up. The first story takes place in Barra, where I live now. This makes it a little hard to judge how the book would feel for someone not familiar with the area, but there is usually an explanation of where named places are, and each of the accounts makes for a good read.
The first chapter gives the detail of one of the most famous shipwrecks off Barra, the emigrant ship The Annie Jane, which ran aground in Barra’s adjacent island of Vatersay, in 1853. Mark Bridgeman has researched minutely the overcrowded conditions under which the ship sailed, the detail of the shipwreck itself and the claims that the islanders did little to help the few survivors, accounts of which vary. What is incontestable, and recognised by the author, is that the islanders themselves had very little to give.
The next story, “The Crown Versus the Ainslie Brothers” homes in on the town of Fort William, where two respectable merchants were involved in a killing. Several of the stories delve into the judicial procedures of Scottish courts. For me the most interesting part here was the reluctance of Scottish jurors to cause someone to be sentenced to death, meaning that they were unlikely to bring a verdict of guilty to premeditated murder where there was any doubt at all. A trial for “culpable homicide” could, however, work against the accused, who might have been exonerated from a charge of murder but who would be more likely to be imprisoned for a lesser charge.
The killing in “The Body in The Bracken” took place just where I am staying as I write this, and throws light on the harsh life led by travelling people in the Highlands a century and a quarter ago, while “Murdered for One Pound” tells of a man who, in times of indescribable poverty in Barra, left the island “rather than be dragooned onto one of John Gordon’s emigrant ships to Canada”. (Gordon of Cluny and his daughter-in-law, Lady Gordon Cathcart, were notoriously cruel owners of the island in the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, responsible for forced clearances, and the deaths of many emigrants from starvation when they reached Canada, where no arrangements had been made for them).
The following stories centre on Ben Nevis and its dangers, and on accounts of robberies and murders in Lochaber, although one of these extended to the Cairngorms, specifically the villages of Nethy Bridge and Coylumbridge, through which I happened to be driving the next day. It all felt very real, especially as this is the week before Christmas, and this particular murder took place on Christmas Eve.
Another Christmas mystery, when three experienced keepers disappeared from the Flannan Isles lighthouse off the Island of Lewis, provided more detail on that story than I have read before. Mark Bridgeman researches everything very carefully, and devotes the next section of this book to another famous mystery, the secret of what happened to the lost treasure of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746, after his army was defeated at The Battle of Culloden. Mr Bridgeman’s earlier book, Blood Beneath Ben Nevis was the inspiration for renewed interest in the search for the treasure, and in this second volume, after going into more detail on the Prince’s wanderings through the Highlands and Islands as a hunted man, he provides an update on the search and some actual information on what happened to a large part of the treasure – an amazing discovery, after this mystery has baffled people for almost three hundred years.
A return to the accounts of more killings and police and judicial procedures brings the book to a close, except for one chapter that I’m glad I read in daylight, entitled Ghosts of Lochaber, which even includes some recent and well-verified happenings in a nearby hotel. I’ll make sure I never stay there! Yes, I swallowed them whole, all the heavy footsteps with no one present, all the invisible opening and closing of doors, even an unseen presence holding the guests down in their bed! My favourite story was of the elderly lady who at one point bought the hotel . . . I’d better not spoil that story! I think that what contributes to the atmosphere of this building in terms of ghostly tales is its dark past. It provided accommodation for government troops hunting down Highlanders who transgressed against the laws introduced after Culloden forbidding the wearing of the kilt and the use of Gaelic, as well as all firearms, of course. Highlanders were hunted down without mercy. The hotel is next to the site of the hanging of an innocent man, James Stewart, for the alleged murder of the notorious “Red Fox” . . . , Colin Campbell. it’s the historical background to all of these tales that make them so powerful, and so compelling. It was a hard and back-breaking existence for many people, with little or no prospect of improvement. That environment shapes the tales, and the tragedies of Lochaber’s history still haunt its inhabitants today. It’s a place which, despite its present reliance on tourism, does not forget its past. Even the name of Fort William is a reminder of oppression and suffering. Mark Bridgeman does full justice to his subject.
March 12, 2023
This is the first book of Mark's I have read in a while and immediately I was taken back to his unique writing style. He pulls me into his stories and they become all consuming. I think it took me about five hours to read the book, between 12.30pm on Saturday and 11am on Sunday with breaks only to eat, go to work and sleep. Had I not been working I could easily have finished it by teatime on Saturday. A intriguing, well written selection of true stories from Fort William and the surrounding area. I particularly liked Mountain Mysteries, The Problem with Murder and Ghosts of Lochabar. Another great read from Mark Bridgeman. Bring on the next one.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews