The Inheritor's Powder
Ratings1
Average rating3
15
Ratings1
Average rating3
Describes the 1833 case that helped change the way murderers who used poison were prosecuted, when an unknown chemist created a test that could determine the presence of arsenic in the body. 15,000 first printing.
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Won through Goodreads.
This book was fine. Some parts were better than others. I agree with the other reviewer/s who said that it seemed like the author had a lot of information that she wanted to include and just stuck it in. There was so much that only roughly all tied together. The main case Hempel focused on was interesting, but not enough for a book. Trying to tell the stories of the toxicologist and sort of one of the cops just didn't work. There are ways to tell multiple stories in one book, but this just isn't one of them.
The parts dealing directly with the Bodle case were interesting and those were the parts that read the quickest for me. All of the technical and peripheral information just dragged on and on. Having the synopsis on the back make it sound like this book was about George Bodle's murder was misleading; the book was only slightly centered on that case.
It's an interesting book, but I don't know that I'd really recommend it to many people.
