Over the last several months I have read several books about Scottish ghosts and have found a big problem. These books were very lacking in detail. There was very little about the possible cause of the haunting or its background. There was also very little in the way of eyewitness accounts. In many cases the whole haunting was delt with in one sentence. Much too rapid fire to keep track of.Scottish Spectres does a much better job of telling its story than these other books. There are some rapid fire listings of haunted places but more often than not there is some detail. Dane Love has divided the book into chapters based on both the kind of ghost involved and the haunted place. This is a little hard to follow at times as for example one chapter deals with, "white ladies" while another involves, "haunted hotels." If for example a white lady haunts a hotel then Love has to decide which chapter to put her in and the reader is left with a hotel haunt in the white ladies chapter. There isn't much of that though so its a small problem.
Most of the stories involve eyewitness accounts and many identify the probable spectre giving some history of this suspect's life and death. I found very interesting the story of the Edinburgh home in which the new owners found a large, solid teak trunk. The trunk had been sent from Sri Lanka and had their name on it even though it had been sent before they bought the house.
This is a fun book. Well written and easy to read. It could have been better but it is still the best book on the subject that I have found.
