SOCIAL SCIENCES

The Secret Poisoner: A Century of Murder

by Linda Stratmann
Yale Univ. Apr. 2016. 344p. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780300204735. $40; ebk. ISBN 9780300219548. CRIME
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During the 19th century, arsenic, cyanide, morphine, strychnine, and other poisons were readily available in Great Britain. In some cases, for the wrong purpose—such as murder. Stratmann (The Marquess of Queensberry) provides a history of the use and misuse of poisons in the 1800s as well as the rise of toxicology to detect these substances. She illustrates how the poison was administered and the consequence of such an action, usually the death penalty. Although the author claims that the number of poison-related murders is low, she also states that we only know about the prominent cases and that it is possible that the amount of killings is much higher than originally thought. After all, it took time to develop tests to determine what type of toxin was used on victims.
VERDICT Well researched and heavily footnoted, this book offers a riveting history on the employment of poisons and the rise of regulations on them. A problem with the footnoting, however, is that the use of 19th-century language is often difficult to understand. Nevertheless, mystery readers will be intrigued by the murderous methods and their effects on victims. For large public libraries and academic libraries.
Reviewed by Michael Sawyer, Pine Bluff, AR , Apr 01, 2016
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