The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Blum’s spine-tingling thriller about early 20th-century poisoners, their innovations in undetectable killing methods, and New York City’s first medical examiner and toxicologist who documented the telltale signs of poisoning is given a theatrical twist in Coleen Marlo’s reading. Her voice is smoky and tinged with humor, irony, and light mocking as she revisits the rudimentary methods of the murder and equally rudimentary science of the Jazz Age. She’s an able guide to the science and her voices are pitch-perfect—especially her humorously masculine characterizations of Blum’s male subjects. A Penguin Press hardcover (Reviews, Dec. 14). (Mar.)