Poison: A History and a Family Memoir

by Gail Bell

Book Overview

Years after Dr. William Macbeth died, his ornate medicine case passed to his estranged son. Over the protests of his family, the son buried it deep in the ground, out of sight and out of reach. Then ten-years-old, Macbeth's granddaughter Gail Bell watched the mysterious case of elixirs arrive at her home. She watched her father treat it like a poison chalice. Only decades later would she understand why: the case concealed evidence of her family's deadly secret. In 1927, Macbeth was accused of poisoning two of his sons. He never stood trial. Bell, determined to discover how this "calm, warm, and caring" healer could become a cunning murderer-and evade detection-eventually uncovered the dark secrets that her father had tried to hide from the world. But as the unexpected twists of her investigation reveal, nothing is as straightforward as it seems. At the same time, she explores what the crime of poisoning reveals about humanity, through the perspectives of myth, history, fiction, and the great poison trials. A pharmacist by profession, and the granddaughter of a suspected poisoner by circumstance, she is perfectly placed to revisit the cases of Cleopatra, Emma Bovary, Napoleon's doctor, Harold Shipman, and Dr. Crippen, and she is equally well-suited to chronicle the devastating effects of poison's many forms, from hemlock and belladonna to arsenic and strychnine. Poison is at once a fascinating history of the science and sociology of poisoning, and a true, first-person account of one woman's struggle to understand its mysterious role in her own family's murderous history.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312306792
• ISBN13: 9780312306793
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A complex but compelling read

An odd little book that I wasn't quite sure I liked after reading the first chapter, however I persevered and I am glad that I did. Gail Bell the author, a trained Chemist by trade is the Granddaughter of a poisoner, a man who murdered his two eldest sons when they were babies and supposedly got away with it. Or that is what she is told by one of her maternal Aunts and it is this family story that leads Gail into the strange, frightening world of poisons, the people who have used poison for murder, accidental poisoning and how poisons can affect the human body both before and after death. Ms Bell is surprisingly methodical and cold about the use of poison through history, looking at the likes of Cleopatra, and Crippen and analysing their motives for dabbling in the murderous art but as she digs deeper into her own family background she finds that her Grandfather the supposed child poisoner is more complex and elusive than she could ever have imagined and that truth is often really stranger than fiction. This book is quite chaotic as one earlier reviewer said, they are right, Ms Bell is telling two stories, one about her Grandfather, the other about poison itself as weapon for murder but for me the two juxtaposed together quite nicely, and the chaos adds to the strange charm of this book. I liked it but I should warn you it's isn't for the really squeamish and also it isn't for those that want an easy read, because of the "chaotic" writing you need to read it very carefully but for me it was quite riveting and I read it in one sitting and really enjoyed it.