 | |
| Author | Deborah Blum |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Marysarah Quinn |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science, True crime, history |
| Publisher | Penguin Press |
Publication date | 2010 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback), hardcover |
| Pages | 336 pp |
| ISBN | 978-1594202438 |
| OCLC | 2009026461 |
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York is a New York Times best-selling non-fiction book by Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum that was released by Penguin Press in 2010.
In 1918, New York City appointed Charles Norris, Bellevue Hospital's chief pathologist, as its first scientifically trained medical examiner. The book, about Norris and Alexander Gettler, the city's first toxicologist, describes the Jazz Age's poisoning cases. Before the two began working in the medical examiner's office, Blum pointed out in her book, poisoners could get away with murder. The book covers the years from 1915 to 1936, which Blum described as a "coming-of-age" for forensic toxicology. "Under (Norris's) direction, the New York City medical examiner's office would become a department that set forensic standards for the rest of the country," Blum wrote.
While a guest on National Public Radio’s "Talk of the Nation/Science Friday" to discuss the book, Blum told host Ira Flatow that she wrote the book because "I've always been interested in poison. I wanted to write about the mystery of how (poisons) kill us.” [1]
Reader's Digest named The Poisoner's Handbook one of its Top 10 best crime books, saying, "This is science writing at its finest that reads like a mystery novel." [2]
The New York Times placed the book on its Top-rated List on March 5, 2010. [3] In its Sunday book review, the Times said The Poisoner's Handbook was "structured like a collection of linked short stories. Each chapter centers on a mysterious death by poison that Norris and Gettler investigate." [4]
The book was listed as a New York Times bestseller in paperback nonfiction in February 2011. [5] Also, Amazon named The Poisoner's Handbook in its Top 100 Best of 2010. [6]
"Not only is The Poisoner's Handbook as thrilling as any 'CSI' episode," wrote reviewer Art Taylor with The Washington Post , "but it also offers something even better: an education in how forensics really works." [7]
Kirkus Reviews described the book as, "The rollicking story of the creation of modern forensic science by New York researchers during the Prohibition era." [8]
Barnes and Noble's editor's review said this: "The book is an unexpected yet appropriate open-sesame into a world that was planting seeds for the world -- with lethal toxins and cutting-edge tools -- that would later, darkly bloom." [9]
Glen Weldon from NPR Books said: "Rigorously researched and thoroughly engaging, The Poisoner's Handbook is a compelling, comprehensive portrait of the time and place that transformed criminal investigation, and made it much more difficult for that most insidious of murderers to escape the law." [10]
PBS optioned The Poisoner's Handbook for TV and produced it as an episode of American Experience . It premiered on January 7, 2014. [11]
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws. During criminal investigation in particular, it is governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal procedure. It is a broad field utilizing numerous practices such as the analysis of DNA, fingerprints, bloodstain patterns, firearms, ballistics, toxicology, and fire debris analysis.
Michael Malloy, later known as either Mike the Durable or Iron Mike, was a homeless Irishman from County Donegal who lived in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. A former firefighter, he survived multiple murder attempts by five acquaintances, who attempted to commit homicide as a life insurance fraud.
The CSI effect describes the various ways in which the exaggerated portrayal of forensic science on crime television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation influences public perception. The term was first reported in a 2004 USA Today article describing the effect being made on trial jurors by television programs featuring forensic science.
Deborah Blum is an American science journalist and the director of the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of several books, including The Poisoner's Handbook (2010) and The Poison Squad (2018), and has been a columnist for The New York Times and a blogger, via her blog titled Elemental, for Wired.
A crime laboratory, often shortened to crime lab, is a scientific laboratory, using primarily forensic science for the purpose of examining evidence from criminal cases.
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Charles Norris was New York's first appointed chief medical examiner (1918–1935) and pioneer of forensic toxicology in America.
Alexander Oscar Gettler was a toxicologist with the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York (OCME) between 1918 and 1959, and the first forensic chemist to be employed in this capacity by a U.S. city. His work at OCME with Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner, created the foundation for modern medicolegal investigation in the U.S. and Gettler has been described by peers as "the father of forensic toxicology in America."
Daniel Stashower is an American author and editor of mystery fiction and historical nonfiction. He lives in Maryland.
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Glen Weldon is an American writer, cultural critic, and podcaster. He has written for publications such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, The Atlantic, and McSweeney's. Weldon currently writes for the NPR Arts Desk and is a panelist on the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner is a non-fiction book written by Judy Melinek and T. J. Mitchell, a wife-and-husband writing team. In July 2001 two months before the September 11 attacks, Judy Melinek, MD, and her husband moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she started training in forensic pathology at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. The book describes some of the 262 autopsies performed by Dr. Melinek during the two years of her training. As part of a medical team she examined the remains of many of the 9/11 victims. The book was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 2014.
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