Molecules of Murder: Criminal Molecules and Classic Cases

I am chemist by trade and when I saw this book pop up on Amazon Vine I thought I would get it and give it a read. It is a fascinating book. Anyone interested in chemistry, forensics, or even poisons would find this book fascinating; you don't need a technical background.

This book covers 5 poisons found in nature and 5 man-made poisons. Each chapter is very nicely structured and goes through how the poison was discovered, how the poison affects the human body, what remedies there are, and then goes through a case study where the poison was used to murder someone. In some chapters there are sections that give statistics on the number of poisonings with a given poison and how many of these are accidental.

The only parts that might require show more some technical knowledge are the chemical descriptions of the poisons and how the poison reacts with the enzymes (or whatever) in the human body. Even these parts of the book are presented in such a fashion that someone without a depth of technical knowledge gets a lot out of them.

The book is very well-written. I was worried this would be more of a dry technical read but it wasn't. I was sucked in right from the beginning and had trouble putting the book down. I really, really enjoyed it.

This is not something you would want to use as a handbook for poisoning because for the majority of cases the poisons go wrong and/or the poisoners get caught. My husband did want to know exactly why I need to read a book about poisons. I told him it was in self-defense :-)

Overall a great book. I will definitely keep an eye out for more books from this author. A colleague of mine actually heard John Emsley do a talk on forensic chemistry at an American Chemical Society meeting; supposedly he is also a great speaker. show less

Poisons are among the favorite weapons of mystery writers, if not murderers. Guns may be quicker, but poisons have a cachet that you really can't beat. On the other hand, murder by poison has become increasingly dangerous - to the perpetrator! Despite the fact that incredibly small amounts of certain chemicals constitute a lethal dose, resourceful forensic scientists have pushed the limits of quantification to even smaller values. It is amazing that a person can be killed with only micrograms of a few substances (think about what a microgram would look like), but even more so that they are always detectable in a corpse. "Molecules of Murder" recounts some of the most infamous murders by poison in a style that will appeal to chemists and show more students of chemistry. While he does not provide chemical structures for the toxins (so as not to put off the non-chemical reader), skilled science writer John Emsley [author of other Hal's Picks in November 2001 and July 1998] deftly describes the murders and the murderers in a case-by-case style that never speaks down to his audience. show less

Though it reads in places like the first draft of a chemistry professor's lecture notes, Molecules of Murder is a fascinating approach to the shiver-inducing topic of homicide by poison. Ten "molecules of murder" are featured, from the well known, such as cyanide, to the man-made radioactive element Polonium-210. For each, Dr. Emsley presents an introduction to its properties (for which a recollection of one's high school chemistry is highly useful), a summary of its beneficial and malignant uses (most have both), and brief accounts of one or more murders in which it figured. There is a good variety of motives, methods and opportunities. The murderers were impelled by money, love, politics and insanity. Some were fiendishly clever, like show more the Bulgarian secret service agent whose umbrella shot a ricin-laden capsule into Georgi Markov's leg. Others, like the notorious Dr. Crippen, bungled the job and had to finish off their victims by other means.

The author concludes with a hopeful moral: that poisoning is not as safe and easy as detective novels might lead you to believe. More than a few of his killers were confident that their agents were undetectable. Modern advances in forensics make any such confidence more and more often misplaced.

Readers with an interest in mysteries, crime solving, chemistry or exotic anecdotes will find Dr. Emsley's chapters well worth their time. show less