Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Poisoner's Handbook


From : The Review



In America, these advances ran into somewhat greater obstacles.


Murder provides the crux for a good many of the stories which fascinate us, whether the tale comes from the tabloids or a novelist's imagination. But the act itself often eludes narrative. A cloud of rage, a moment of opportunity, and a weapon in hand leads to death in minutes, even seconds, barely enough time to register that the victim has moved out of the land of the living. Add a dash of poison, however, rationed out in small doses over a long period of time, and murder leaves the realm of second-degree impulse for first-degree pre-meditation. Randomize the efforts and, in recent cases like the 1982 Tylenol murders and the 2001 anthrax attacks, the result is domestic terror, the lack of resolution lingering in the air like the bitter almond smell of cyanide.





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