The Poisoner's Handbook
The Poisoner's Handbook (2010) by Deborah Blum. The subtitle of this book is "Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York." And the book is uniquely structured around the 1920s and '30s, and set mostly in New York. Chapters are headed by the name of the poison which came to prominence in certain years. For example, Chapter One is Chloroform/1915. Chapter Two is Wood Alcohol, Three is Cyanide, and so forth. Who would have dreamed there are so many poisons? And this book just scratches the surface. It also tells the stories of the men (and they were mostly men) who developed forensic medicine, especially in the detection of poisons in victims of murders. It's a most fascinating book, and I recommend it highly. Grade: A
Labels: Nonfiction
Nothing Left to Burn
Nothing Left to Burn (2010) by Jay Varner. Varner is the son of a fireman and the grandson of a firebug, and that heritage has colored his outlook on life. In this book, he tells what it was like growing up in McVeytown, Pennsylvania, with a father who was one of the most popular men in town, but who was rarely home to relate to his son; and with a grandfather who instilled mortal fear in him, but whom he didn't understand until he was well into adulthood. This is a very good read. Grade: B+
Labels: Memoir
Hellhound on His Trail
Hellhound on His Trail (2010) by Hampton Sides. Subtitle: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin. This is an electrifying, albeit methodical, job of reportage about James Earl Ray and his pursuit of Martin Luther King, and also about King and his entourage, up to the time of King's assassination on April 4, 1968. The book then follows Ray as he tries to escape, and the FBI and various law-enforcement agencies as they pursue him. It's an inherently exciting story, and Sides does it justice with his scrupulous reporting. Grade: A
Labels: Nonfiction
The Imperfectionists
The Imperfectionists (2010) by Tom Rachman. The imperfectionists of the title are a group of American expatriates living in Rome and working at an English-language newspaper being published there. "The Imperfectionists" is a delicious collection of linked short stories, each telling the story of an individual who either works at the newspaper or is involved with it in some way. I found it compulsively readable and completely entertaining. At 269 pages, the book is the perfect length, long enough to provide a few hours of diverting reading, but not so long as to seem like a burden to read. Grade: A
Labels: Novel
