The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Deborah Blum

Penguin Group US, Jan 25, 2011 - Medical - 336 pages

Equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner's Handbook is "a vicious, page-turning story that reads more like Raymond Chandler than Madame Curie" (The New York Observer)

A fascinating Jazz Age tale of chemistry and detection, poison and murder, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten era. In early twentieth-century New York, poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Science had no place in the Tammany Hall-controlled coroner's office, and corruption ran rampant. However, with the appointment of chief medical examiner Charles Norris in 1918, the poison game changed forever. Together with toxicologist Alexander Gettler, the duo set the justice system on fire with their trailblazing scientific detective work, triumphing over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice.

What people are saying

Review: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

User Review  - Mary Whisner - Goodreads

In The Poisoner's Handbook, Deborah Blum tells the human and scientific stories of poison and investigation in the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on New York City and two crusading scientists: Charles ...

Review: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

User Review  - Becca - Goodreads

I found this as an audiobook in my library as I was preparing for a long car ride. I have trouble listening to audio books when I drive because I'm too distracted by traffic to pay much attention, but ...

About the author

Deborah Blum is a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She won the 1992 Pulitzer prize in Beat Reporting for a series of articles on primate research and has also written a book on the subject, The Monkey Wars.
Mary Knudson is a freelance writer. She covered medicine for eighteen years with the Baltimore Sun. She also teaches a science-writing workshop at Johns Hopkins University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
• Author: Deborah Blum
• Publisher: Penguin Group US, 2011
• ISBN: 1101524898, 9781101524893
• Length: 336 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / State & Local / Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA); Medical / Forensic Medicine; Medical / Toxicology