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

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Feh. In the afterward, the author thanks a whole bunch of people for helping her with the technical aspects of the chemistry. And I was like "ahaha what technical aspects? What chemistry?" This book is like the Youtube video of chemistry: the "technical" sections would read something like, "he ground the tissue into a paste, then boiled it in a simple solution. And then he added nitric acid and the whole thing flared green!"

That isn't chemistry, that's a Mr. Rogers voice over. And this is not science writing. It's history with a sprinkle of description using science words on top, with no exploration of how or why.

The book could have been somewhat redeemed with interesting historical content, given that's what it was really doing. And there is a lot of stuff here about the founding of the first true American forensics lab, and the institution of a lot of modern law enforcement procedures against a corrupt political background. Oh, and a whole bunch of stuff about the homebrewed poisons of the prohibition era, when a glass of moonshine actually could kill you. But it was disorganized and shallow, with the usual journalist focus on the sensationalist details of cases without any real analysis or depth.

And the fake "science writing" was astonishingly irritating.

Didn't I just swear off nonfiction by reporters? Well, I'm doing it again, and this time I'll actually check first so it sticks.

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