- Title And Author: A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup
- Publisher: Bloomsbury
- Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
- Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
- Length: 320 Pages or 9 hours and 50 minutes
As you might be have noticed over the past few months on here and on my social media (mainly my Twitter), I have slowly reading some more crime/thriller novels. I use to say this is a guilty pleasure of mine as my reading jam is usually fantasy, but not saying that now. I enjoy reading crime. What set this off was me reading/audiobooking Agatha Christie and making an effect to read some of her work this year (I am planning to read more next year as part of a reading challenge for The Pewter Wolf). But what intrigued me the most was how Agatha Christie did the killing in her works - poisonings.
So, when I saw this book a few months back, which looks at the poisons used in her novels, I became intrigued and wanted to read it. But no bookshop I went into had it on the shelf nor my library. Plus, I didn’t want to ask if anyone could order it for me - what if they thought I was plotting to kill my Other Half? So, when I saw this on Audible, I was in two minds for a good few minutes as I wasn’t sure if audiobooking this was a good idea, plus I wasn’t sure I would get on with the narrator, and it’s non-fiction (a genre I struggle in). But in the end, I went “What’s the worse that could happen?”
Agatha Christie was a chemist throughout both World Wars so her knowledge of poisons was extensive. A is for Arsenic looks into the poisons Agatha Christie used in well-known novels, such as Mysterious Affairs at Styles, Crooked House, Sparkling Cyanide and 4.50 from Paddington among others novels, and look at how the chemicals interact with the body to cause death, to cure the poison, real life cases and look at how the murder was committed in the novels.
