A IS FOR ARSENIC: THE POISONS OF AGATHA CHRISTIE
Kathryn Harkup
Bloomsbury
Pages 288; Price Rs 399
This is a dangerous book. It talks about the science behind murderous poisons, ingenious methods of administering them and shrewd apothecaries. It is also about a writer who was scarily precise in her depiction of crimes, criminals and their modus operandi. Most of all, it is dangerously addictive.
Katheryn Harkup is new neither to popular science nor to the science behind popular fiction. Author of Imperfect Animation: The Science and Scientists behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, her expertise is evident as she pays tribute to Agatha Christie's meticulous study of poisons on the writer's 125th birth anniversary on September 15, 2015.
The author begins with Christie's deep association with drugs, chemicals and medicines from her days as an apothecary's assistant. Working at dispensaries, mixing drugs and brewing medicine, Christie had gained a thorough knowledge of the nature, measure and impact of each pharmaceutical element and compound. It is no wonder, then, that poison became her more favoured method of bumping off characters when she turned her attention to writing.
Harkup does not name a poison for every letter, but she proceeds alphabetically through her 14 venoms from arsenic to Veronal, telling the story of each of their origins, history, effects, possible antidotes and some of their most infamous usage. She structures every story in a similar way, introducing Christie's use of the particular poison, building up the mystery and then leaving it at a point that would interest the reader enough to go back to Christie's narrative.
Once the plot is introduced, Harkup deviates first into a backgrounder to the poison and, finally, to possible real life crimes and cases that might have influenced Christie's work. The research involves some serious science, but Harkup's narrative is reminiscent of Christie herself in the way she distils scientific jargon into layman's language, making it easier to get hooked.
Nor will the keen chemist be disappointed. Ms Harkup does not hold back on details when it comes to explaining the chemical and biological effects of each poison, beefing up her text with diagrams and an appendix comprising a guide to the more complex chemical structures discussed in the book. Ms Harkup brings all her experience as a chemist to bear in her attempt to understand the chemist behind the author Christie.
The book, however, is not only about Christie's research into chemistry and drugs, or a mere list of which poison was used in which stories. Rather, it presents a cross-section view of Christie's England - a place where arsenic was found in abundance as was the reason to administer it.
The specific case histories that Ms Harkup places as examples in her narratives become brilliant studies in the criminal mind-set of late-Victorian early modern England. Class struggles emerge, financial motives surface, psychological patterns become evident and a fast-growing industrial urban-scape is thrown up in its sooty, grease-coated details, churning out criminals in some of the most respected and money social classes.
Just as in Christie's works, Harkup's depiction of England is that of a fading idyllic society, still cocooned in its grandeur, its air of prosperity, even as madness sets in beneath this. This was a society enthralled, awed and obsessed with poisons. Patent tonics contained strychnine, opium could be bought over the counter without question, and no gardener's shed was complete without a stock of potassium cyanide (used as an insecticide). Wallpapers at home were painted with arsenic compounds. It was both the Golden Age of detective fiction and of poisons. Neither the would-be criminal nor the would-be crime-writer was ever strained for resources.
The narratives are not constrained to England or British society. As the poisons are tracked down through their history, interesting anecdotes emerge. Quirky ways of suicide (chewing the inflammable tip of matchsticks), famous artists and their relation with poisons (Van Gogh's "Yellow Period") and the social class of poisons (arsenic was the poison of kings, and the king of poisons).
A for Arsenic is evidence that chemistry and science drove Christie's plots more than the characters. The spoiler alert is that Ms Harkup occasionally discloses key elements of plots and intentions that all but reveal the twist in Christie's originals. This would not be a hindrance to ardent Christie fans, but may put off those who have a huge swathe of Christie's work still unread.
Overall, Ms Harkup's book is a must for every fan of crime fiction as well as aspiring crime-fiction writers. It is, in Christie's words, "deliciously macabre".
Kathryn Harkup
Bloomsbury
Pages 288; Price Rs 399
This is a dangerous book. It talks about the science behind murderous poisons, ingenious methods of administering them and shrewd apothecaries. It is also about a writer who was scarily precise in her depiction of crimes, criminals and their modus operandi. Most of all, it is dangerously addictive.
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Katheryn Harkup is new neither to popular science nor to the science behind popular fiction. Author of Imperfect Animation: The Science and Scientists behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, her expertise is evident as she pays tribute to Agatha Christie's meticulous study of poisons on the writer's 125th birth anniversary on September 15, 2015.
The author begins with Christie's deep association with drugs, chemicals and medicines from her days as an apothecary's assistant. Working at dispensaries, mixing drugs and brewing medicine, Christie had gained a thorough knowledge of the nature, measure and impact of each pharmaceutical element and compound. It is no wonder, then, that poison became her more favoured method of bumping off characters when she turned her attention to writing.
Harkup does not name a poison for every letter, but she proceeds alphabetically through her 14 venoms from arsenic to Veronal, telling the story of each of their origins, history, effects, possible antidotes and some of their most infamous usage. She structures every story in a similar way, introducing Christie's use of the particular poison, building up the mystery and then leaving it at a point that would interest the reader enough to go back to Christie's narrative.
Once the plot is introduced, Harkup deviates first into a backgrounder to the poison and, finally, to possible real life crimes and cases that might have influenced Christie's work. The research involves some serious science, but Harkup's narrative is reminiscent of Christie herself in the way she distils scientific jargon into layman's language, making it easier to get hooked.
Nor will the keen chemist be disappointed. Ms Harkup does not hold back on details when it comes to explaining the chemical and biological effects of each poison, beefing up her text with diagrams and an appendix comprising a guide to the more complex chemical structures discussed in the book. Ms Harkup brings all her experience as a chemist to bear in her attempt to understand the chemist behind the author Christie.
The book, however, is not only about Christie's research into chemistry and drugs, or a mere list of which poison was used in which stories. Rather, it presents a cross-section view of Christie's England - a place where arsenic was found in abundance as was the reason to administer it.
The specific case histories that Ms Harkup places as examples in her narratives become brilliant studies in the criminal mind-set of late-Victorian early modern England. Class struggles emerge, financial motives surface, psychological patterns become evident and a fast-growing industrial urban-scape is thrown up in its sooty, grease-coated details, churning out criminals in some of the most respected and money social classes.
Just as in Christie's works, Harkup's depiction of England is that of a fading idyllic society, still cocooned in its grandeur, its air of prosperity, even as madness sets in beneath this. This was a society enthralled, awed and obsessed with poisons. Patent tonics contained strychnine, opium could be bought over the counter without question, and no gardener's shed was complete without a stock of potassium cyanide (used as an insecticide). Wallpapers at home were painted with arsenic compounds. It was both the Golden Age of detective fiction and of poisons. Neither the would-be criminal nor the would-be crime-writer was ever strained for resources.
The narratives are not constrained to England or British society. As the poisons are tracked down through their history, interesting anecdotes emerge. Quirky ways of suicide (chewing the inflammable tip of matchsticks), famous artists and their relation with poisons (Van Gogh's "Yellow Period") and the social class of poisons (arsenic was the poison of kings, and the king of poisons).
A for Arsenic is evidence that chemistry and science drove Christie's plots more than the characters. The spoiler alert is that Ms Harkup occasionally discloses key elements of plots and intentions that all but reveal the twist in Christie's originals. This would not be a hindrance to ardent Christie fans, but may put off those who have a huge swathe of Christie's work still unread.
Overall, Ms Harkup's book is a must for every fan of crime fiction as well as aspiring crime-fiction writers. It is, in Christie's words, "deliciously macabre".