Poison Romance and Poison Mysteries

Thompson's 1890s examination of poison is a dazzling cabinet of Victorian curiosities, where the laboratory meets the opium den and the physician's lancet crosses paths with Medea's vial. As an eminent toxicologist, Thompson brings hard science to the sensational, tracing humanity's relationship with deadly substances from primitive revenge rituals through Greek mythology to the newspaper headlines of his own era. The book argues that poison sits at a strange crossroads: it heals and kills, appears in love philtres and murder trials, links the witch to the physician and the altar to the scaffold. The later chapters deliver what the title promises - the Lambeth poison mysteries and the American 'poison mystery' cases that transfixed readers - while earlier sections explore how African tribes, ancient Greeks, and medieval alchemists all turned to toxic substances for power, protection, and profit. This is a book for anyone who wonders why we have always been fascinated by the things that can kill us quietly, invisibly, with elegance.