Poison Pen

At first I was put off by the scary illustrations in Kathryn Harkup’s new book, V Is for Venom: Agatha Christie’s Chemicals of Death. My fears weren’t roused by pictures of grotesque corpses or ominous crime scenes, but by diagrams of molecules and chemical reactions horribly reminiscent of my dreaded high-school chemistry textbook.

Indeed, images of atoms balanced in Calder-esque designs are the only illustrations in the book. Fortunately, I resisted the temptation to abandon it, and I came away with an understanding of chemical interactions, and particularly of the nonstop frenzy of biochemical activity that keeps us alive, clearer than I ever gained from school.