In a 21st century world in which many of the basics of science are well-understood, we take the wisdom of medical practitioners for granted. We have transplanted organs and harnessed the X-ray. We have banished diseases and sequenced genomes. But such was not always the case. Less than a century ago, the role of germs and infections, bacteria and viruses, were still being debated. In such a confused climate, it is no wonder that clever murderers considered themselves above the law for there was no law capable of catching them.
Since time began, humans have been poisoning each other, but it wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that they could freely purchase such exotic substances to use in the actualization of their vengefulness. In jazz-aged New York (1910-1930), these new methods of killing came up against the dawn of forensic medicine to create an environment in which a city's coroners and pathologists were as important to the investigative process as its police detectives. For it was only in these dreary labs, under these harsh lights, that the destructiveness of substances from arsenic to wood alcohol could be isolated, understood, and detected in the bodies of the city's murdered.
Into this lethal stew, where killers freely prey on their victims, wades Charles Norris, a wealthy idealist who, as New York's chief medical examiner, fostered a revolution in forensic toxicology. The standards he established, along with the talent he attracted and nurtured, transformed the coroner's office from an uninspired documentor of death into an agency capable of, first, solving the scientific mysteries behind unsolved, city murders and, then, using those proofs to correctly aim the NYPD at the true perpetrators of some of the city's most awful crimes. In this, Norris both advanced scientific knowledge and empowered an office to actively assist in the cause of justice. These are his cases, triumphs and failures both.
Though The Poisoner's Handbook is ostensibly a history of the birth of modern, systematic forensic toxicology, Ms. Blum has tapped into a man in Norris whose determination and nobility transform her tale into a biography of a fascinating American. Norris' willingness to challenge some of New York City's most powerful political figures in the pursuit of justice is as courageous as his doggedness is admirable. In vividly exemplifying Norris' more famous contributions, in thoroughly capturing Prohibition-era New York, and in compellingly elucidating the important strides in the development of modern forensics, Ms. Blum has paid tribute to an inspirational scientist, reminded us of the flawed logic that can lead government to calamitous policy, and documented the development of a science vital to the achievement of criminal justice. That she does so with equal success and vigor endows her effort here with the power to educate and entertain.
Witness testimony has been, for centuries, the primary tool used by the legal system to earn convictions of the guilty. And in an era where science is revealing the deep-seated weaknesses in such testimony, it is clear that forensics will only continue to gain in importance, on its way to perhaps becoming the pillar upon which lady justice leans. In this,Ms. Blum has put together a glitzy origin story for a potent science. (4/5 Stars)
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