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