The Poisoner's Handbook · Falling For A Killer · Ethical true-crime consumption
Plus I Am A Killer and Erin Moriarty.
the true crime that's worth your time
With hours to spare: January’s bonus book review of The Poisoner’s Handbook.
Because sometimes, a jacket copy’s breathless cheerleading is completely accurate…
The crime
Per the paperback’s back cover, “In early-twentieth-century New York, poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime,” but chief ME Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler “set the justice system on fire with their trailblazing scientific detective work … to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice.”
That summary indicates, at least to me, a somewhat tiresome John Douglas-ian fluffing of these two figures, with a little case-cracking mixed in, but Deborah Blum takes on just about every headline case of the era, even if only in passing: Ruth Snyder, Olive Thomas, the legions of ancillary crimes connected to Prohibition. She also weaves in a half dozen I’d never even heard of and wanted to go off and research, including Roland Molineux, Charles Webb, and the difficult birth of leaded gasoline.
The story
Guys, thank you so much for making me read this one! It really is, also per the back cover, a “beguiling concoction — equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller.” I will warn my fellow emetophobes that some of the imagery surrounding, say, a mass poisoning of huckleberry pie at a Wall Street lunch counter is not the most pleasing, but it’s not all that graphic (and, you know, no pictures or anything); there’s just frequent mention of vomiting, which given the subject is understandable. Other than that…wait, Norris and Gettler do a lot of testing on stray dogs, so that’s a little upsetting. Other than that, though…actually, the fact that it added like seven books to my Amazon wishlist is maybe a downside? Also the wiki-holes I kept falling down?
But other than all of THAT (hee), it’s a delight to read. Blum’s prose is smooth and unobtrusive, with occasional fillips of poetry, as when she describes the streets of Paris following the crowd crush of Olive Thomas’s funeral as “carpeted with countless hats.” And she’s not above some gentle snark, as when Standard Oil shrugs that workers falling ill in the TEL processing plant were likely to blame for working too hard: “The statement failed to impress the State of New Jersey, which ordered the plant closed.” …Okay, maybe this is funnier to natives, who know how easy said State usually is to impress if there’s enough cash on the barrel?
Still, it’s not an easy feat to weave together explanations of fiddly forensic-test development; tie them to pertinent cases, many of which are notorious enough to require at least a couple grafs of unpacking; and give the reader adequate context as to how life was physically, literally lived a hundred years ago in NYC. Many of us have lived in older buildings with knobby gas-lamp conduits on the walls; we just hang the dry cleaning or the dog’s leash on them, and don’t think about how many carbon-monoxide deaths they caused. We know traffic is bad now; we forget what it was like when everyone just…bought cars first and learned to drive second, in a muddy city with no traffic signals. Blum really gives the reader a sense — like, nearly literally; she can evoke smells and weather, and quality of light from the early 1920s, very skillfully — of what it was like to live, and die, at that time. And while she’s clearly done the research on the various cases she braids into the timeline, Blum doesn’t get bogged down in that “I spent five months in a dusty archive and goddammit every last fleck of information is going into the ms.” way some histories can; she gives enough background to locate us, relates it to Norris and Gettler, and steps right along, and it feels neither overstuffed nor rushed.
The Poisoner’s Handbook covers a ton of cultural and criminal ground at a zippy pace; you can probably read it in a day, but if you don’t have time for that, there’s an American Experience on the topic (because of course there is) that you can watch the first bit of below. Great read; enthusiastically recommend! — SDB
The Primetimer pieces I mentioned yesterday are now live. You can read my overarching thoughts on where Falling For A Killer might find itself in the overstuffed “pantheon” of Bundy materials right here; and here’s my piece recommending giving both seasons of I Am A Killer a look despite a not-great title.
Already watching Falling For A Killer? This week’s open thread is here for your comments/complaints!
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And now, a little link round-up to send you into the weekend!
Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey turned the tables on Alec Baldwin during a Weinstein interview, asking why he “appeared unbothered” by accusations against screenwriter and Baldwin friend James Toback. [Inside Podcasting]
This profile of 48 Hrs.’ Erin Moriarty confirmed my suspicion that she’s a vanguard bad-ass. I didn’t know she started out as a litigator! [Oprah]
I saw a couple of crime reporters I follow on Twitter talking about this piece, which offers “tips for balanced and informed crime coverage.” Reading it myself, I wondered if it doesn’t also offer tips for balanced and informed consumption — i.e., “how” to read true-crime materials, how much skepticism to bring to forensic-science citations, and so on. [The Center for Journalism Ethics]
Monday on Best Evidence: Jordan Belfort; Satanic panic; and swiping right on vintage true-crime paperbacks. You know, the usz.
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