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

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

Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum follows New York City's first forensic scientists to discover a fascinating Jazz Age story of chemistry and detection, poison and murder.

Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of the very best mystery fiction, shares the untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. In The Poisoner's Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.

Drama unfolds case by case as the heroes of The Poisoner's Handbook-chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler-investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, Barnum and Bailey's Famous Blue Man, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler work with a creativity that rivals that of the most imaginative murderer, creating revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. Yet in the tricky game of toxins, even science can't always be trusted, as proven when one of Gettler's experiments erroneously sets free a suburban housewife later nicknamed "America's Lucretia Borgia" to continue her nefarious work.

From the vantage of Norris and Gettler's laboratory in the infamous Bellevue Hospital it becomes clear that killers aren't the only toxic threat to New Yorkers. Modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner. Automobiles choke the city streets with carbon monoxide; potent compounds, such as morphine, can be found on store shelves in products ranging from pesticides to cosmetics. Prohibition incites a chemist's war between bootleggers and government chemists while in Gotham's crowded speakeasies each round of cocktails becomes a game of Russian roulette. Norris and Gettler triumph over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice during a remarkably deadly time. A beguiling concoction that is equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten New York.

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I bought this book after watching the show on PBS. The story of Charles Norris bringing the NYC Medical Examiner's Office out of the practice of patronage and into the scientific age is very worthy. In a sense, this office is the first-line of public health, not only for the nation's largest city but for the nation as well. Norris' chief toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, was a chemistry genius. His story was fascinating too, for he developed or refined techniques needed to determine which poison cause a death. As biography and history, the book was engrossing.

However, I gave it only 2 stars for reasons many other reviewers pointed out. The chemistry described within is execrable. I have a master's in biochemistry (PhD in immunology), and took graduate-level chemistry courses as an undergrad. I cringed reading the book. I'm astounded that Ms. Blum thanks 2 chemists in her acknowledgments. In this day and age, finding the decay pathway of radium on the internet is a click of the mouse, as is how cyanide interferes with cellular respiration (it inhibits a major enzyme, cytochrome c).

If not for the bad chemistry, I would have rated the book 4 or even 5 stars. Norris and Gettler deserve a book yet to be written.

If you expect a dense scientific text or will be disappointed that some of the cases are accidental deaths and not murder, don't read. However, if like me you enjoy a bit of history, a bit of science, a lot of morbid investigation, and the triumphant underdog story of two luminary forensic examiners against the backdrop of Prohibition, the book is fascinating and morbidly fun.

The title "Poisoner's Handbook" belies the book's true focus, the two amazing men at the center of each of the public histories of the poisons Blum writes about: chloroform, arsenic, cyanide, mercury, carbon monoxide, radium, ethyl and methyl alcohols, and thallium.

Charles Norris, first Chief Medical Examiner of NYC, and his chief toxicologist, Alexander Gettler were, according to Blum, almost solely responsible for modernizing forensic science in the United States. Before Norris' appointment, the office of coroner required no medical training, and death certificates were often incomplete or falsified for bribes if they were filled out at all. Norris and Gettler spent their careers making forensics a rigorous study, and as if that weren't enough, were hugely influential crusaders for regulation of toxic substances, and for the repeal of Prohibition, which engendered a slew of deadly bootleg concoctions, including the industrial wood grain alcohol that the government endeavored to make more poisonous than it already was, knowing that it would be imbibed by prohibition breakers.

Although the writing was snappy and fast-faced, Blum had little work to do to create drama; Norris and Gettler's heroic efforts to identify the effects of these poisons on the body in many cases for the very first time, and the huge failure that was the Prohibition largely did her work for her. I was riveted. I'm not sure why there isn't yet a forensic TV drama about the two men and the poisons they studied.

I loved the book. It was an educational read and very interesting. It was a little difficult to get into the book. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn more about how forensics got to where they are today. I feel like I did learn quite a few interesting facts from this book. After a few chapters I actually started to enjoy this book. This book is definitely not for young kids or maybe even teenagers. It has a few parts that are a little dark. It does talk about a lot of people dying and it also talks about a few people getting murdered and some people that did the murdering. I ended up reading this book for a chemistry book report assignment. I love the title of this book because it sounds like this is the book to read if you want to learn about poisoning someone. Overall, It was a great book to learn about some very interesting facts about types of poisons.

I started reading this book expecting to love it, and ended up just liking it. I'd give it 3.5 stars if that were an option. The conceit is awfully fun: tell the story of the development of the first modern US forensics lab through a series of popular poisons of the 1920s. In execution I found the characters muddled to the point where I couldn't tell one from another, and there were a few egregious errors which indicated that Deborah Blum doesn't have a rigorous scientific background. (An nicely exhaustive list can be found here, though some of those were fixed in the paperback edition I read. Not "releasing a current of 2000 volts" however.)

That said, I learned a lot about various toxins and how they destroy living organisms and how the various scientists in the narrative figured out ways to detect them. (Warning: it's occasionally not for the squeamish). I also enjoyed the tales of corrupt politicians and dumb criminals and the portrayal of American life during prohibition.

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