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POISONS

AN INTRODUCTION FOR FORENSIC INVESTIGATORS

Provides a highly informative, if occasionally technical, look at the world of harmful substances.

Debut author George presents an in-depth book on poisons.

Just about any substance can be deleterious when taken in large enough amounts—caffeine pills or even water. The book’s focus, however, is on more familiar types of poisoning and overdosing. Topics include common deadly plants, recreational drugs, and many types of intentional poisonings, whether the intent is homicidal or suicidal. Technical terms occur throughout, including symptoms of many poisonings, like tachycardia (i.e. “fast heartbeat”), but the text is still highly readable for the layperson. Each chapter includes case studies that illustrate a person or people becoming very ill and often dying due to something they ingested— knowingly or not. Such studies tend to stick to the basics—the substance, when the situation occurred, and legal repercussions, if any, for the parties involved. While details can be scant, those included are often riveting. A number of examples of accidental consumption involve an unlabeled or incorrectly labeled poisonous substance, like the seemingly innocuous yet highly lethal ethylene glycol, a sweet tasting, common ingredient in antifreeze. A chapter on plants drives home the point that even big, beautiful flowers like the Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia suaveolens) can be deadly when consumed. A section on “Multiple Victim Poisonings” details how easy it can be to poison many people at once, whether the intent is as harmless as a dish at a company picnic or as sinister as a cult suicide or even a targeted attack.    George deploys the requisite dark humor; on the mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate cult: “There is no evidence to indicate whether or not the cult members were successful in targeting their souls to a higher level in the universe.” In contrast to the real-life examples, the book can wax somewhat obvious; for example, “The properties of the specific poison dictate the method of administration.” Surely even the most heedless poisoner would not try to administer an undissolved solid poison in a liquid. Nevertheless, as the case studies show, simply because someone makes use of a poison does not necessarily mean they understand the poison’s properties. Then there are those who know the hazards of a poison and yet will go to great lengths to consume it. The text is rife with troubling practices like opioid addicts’ brewing a “tea” from fentanyl patches. For those who have given little thought to the many noxious substances around them, the book serves as an eye opener. Even compounds the reader has likely heard of can be found in unexpected places. It turns out nicotine is a naturally occurring component in a number of plants (including eggplant, though of course there’s much more nicotine in tobacco), and it’s not unheard of for helium to be utilized in suicides. By the book’s end, it seems that even the most reckless reader would approach the many ingestible hazards of the world with fresh apprehension.

Provides a highly informative, if occasionally technical, look at the world of harmful substances.  

Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4987-0382-6

Page Count: 406

Publisher: Auerbach Publications

Review Posted Online: July 6, 2018

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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