My cousin, Pam, and I shared a love for certain things. When she came to New York once, we were discussing what to do together. I had something I really wanted to do, but I was afraid to say it aloud, not sure how she’d react. Finally, she admitted, “I saw something in the paper and was hoping we could – I hope you don’t think this is too geeky – could we maybe go to the Natural History Museum for the tree frog exhibit?” It was like she had read my mind.

The Poisoner’s Handbook was another thing we had in common: I was about to recommend it to her when she said she was already reading it, and making her husband suspect she was trying to take him out.

The title is genius, but this isn’t a How To book. Instead, it’s a history of forensic medicine, set at a time when it seemed like everyone was poisoning everyone else: the early 20th Century. We take autopsies for granted now, the quick diagnosis of cause of death. Remember folks, medicine sciences were still part magic 100 years ago: we didn’t have aspirin, antibiotics, or a way to figure out how people died. You might suspect that someone had been poisoned by the suddenness – and convenience – of their death, but without eyewitness testimony, you didn’t have proof. The science hadn’t progressed much past where it was in City of Light, City of Poison (i.e. Paris in the 1600s).

Forensic medicine, like the rest of medical science, underwent a revolution in the early 20th Century. In France, pathologists were putting clues together to connect serial murders (more on The Killer of Little Shepherds in a later post). In New York, forensic pathologists were using science to revolutionize cause of death.

Blum explores the ones you’ve heard of – cyanide, arsenic – and trendy poisons like chloroform. She also looks at accidental poisonings from carbon monoxide; and industrial poisonings from mercury, radium, and thallium (some intentional; some careless). And she looks at the impact of prohibition on poisonings from wood and ethyl alcohol.

This book is a delightful romp through the early evolution of forensic science, with a mystery every chapter that is solved by the scientists with their test-tubes. In the course of spinning her tale, she pulls in the challenges of developing new scientific methods – and then making them support convictions in courtrooms. All this amongst the yellow press, Tammany Hall, and the changing social mores of the early 20th Century. Blum makes New York City in the 1920s tangible and vivid and she makes learning about chemistry engaging.

I am a sucker for books that paint a vivid world: authors like Anne McCaffrey, Dorothy Sayers, Tolkien, Laura Ingalls Wilder make it easy to picture yourself there in that world with the characters. Deborah Blum does the same thing in her books, early 20th Century New York coming alive the same way: the tiny, crowded, dusty laboratories where the chemists worked; the bitterly cold and icy winters; and the dark tenements and glitzy hotels where victims died.

I’ve only read this book once but, diving back into it for this post, makes me think it’s time for another read. I’ve got four bedside books going now (I don’t count the eBooks on my phone that I only read away from home) and I’m adding this to the pile. I also notice that Blum has an earlier book that I don’t think I’ve read, so I’m adding that to my – oh, wait, I have read it. Dang! She needs to release another book.

If you’ve read The Poisoner’s Handbook and it’s sequel, The Poison Squad (about chemists fighting for food safety), you might try Brad Ricca’s Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, which takes place in New York City around the same time, and features a lawyer who advocates for underserved immigrants and the poor. Her groundbreaking approach and persistent pursuit of fact, led to the dismissive nickname assigned by the press.