In this Preface the author, Graeme Macrae Burnet, explains the origins of the historical documents presented in the book and offers some context for the benefit of the reader. As he explains, he learned about the trial of Roderick Macrae, who was tried and convicted for a gruesome triple-homicide, while investigating his family history. Roderick’s trial and memoir became a cause of scandal and celebrity following Roderick’s crimes and arrest in 1869. Although literary critics and historians have questioned the authenticity of Roderick’s memoir, which many suspect was written by his legal advocate Andrew Sinclair, Burnet believes that the level of detail in the memoir’s descriptions of life in the Scottish Highland town of Culduie is too accurate for an outsider to have written it.

Burnet introduces the other historical materials he’s chosen to include: statements given to the police by Culduie residents, post-mortem reports describing the murder victims, and an excerpt from the memoir of criminal psychologist J. Bruce Thompson, who met and examined Roderick Macrae before his trial. Regarding the latter, Burnet explains that “while some of the views expressed might be unpalatable to the modern reader, it is worth bearing in mind […] that they represent a genuine effort to move beyond a theological view of criminality” (3).