Chemistry – Ramblings on my bookshelves

An absolutely fascinating read, Kathryn Harkup is has a doctorate in chemistry and for six years ran an outreach program for the University of Surrey producing work on science that would “appeal to bored teenagers”. This skill set is admirably suited to explaining the chemistry in a technical, yet easy to understand way when approaching the various poisons utilised by Christie in her novels. What I hadn’t known before reading this book is that Christie was herself a dispensing chemist in a hospital up until the publication of her third book in the early 1920’s and returned to this role during WWII after retraining to update her knowledge of the various substances to be found in a hospital pharmacy. It is this background that allowed her to accurately describe not only the poisons themselves but the dosages needed and the symptoms when taken in excess and Harkup notes that she was by and large very accurate with the few errors being largely down to lack of knowledge at the time especially of the more unusual substances.

The book concludes with a couple of appendices, the first is a list of each of Christie’s novels with both UK and American titles, it’s amazing how many were changed, and the method of how each victim was killed or was attempted to be killed. For example with Christie’s own favourite book ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ we have Arsenic, Veronal *, Stabbed. The asterisk indicates that this was suicide there is also ** for attempted murder, *** for medication withheld and **** for an invented poison of which there is just one example ‘Calmo’ in ‘The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side’. This appendix in itself is a massive piece of work, whist the second appendix gives the chemical structure of he various products referred to in the book. There is also a bibliography and a comprehensive index which underlines the scientific background of the author. Veronal by the way is one of the chemicals with its own chapter in the book and is a barbiturate and the structure of this chapter, which is mirrored by the thirteen others, will give you an idea of the thoroughness Harkup has approached her task:

Firstly we get some historical context which in this case points out that the use of barbiturates dates the books with them in as they were commonly used for suicides in the 1920’s and 30’s but have unpredictable dosages, a large amount can be survived but small doses can kill depending on various factors which cannot be accurately determined in advance. The second section looks at a real life example of the poison being used and how this may have provided a basis for Christie and compares that to the chosen book to represent the use. In this example the book chosen is ‘Lord Edgeware Dies’, which is one of several stories to have barbiturates mentioned, four of which involve murder and two suicide.. As I said before, the level of analysis of the books is really noteworthy and any Christie fan should really have a copy of this volume as they will find it fascinating. The third section looks at the history of barbiturates in general, from their discovery to their usage in medicine and beyond. This also includes an explanation of how the drugs work, how they interact with the body and the effects that will be seen both whist being administered, the aftereffects and detection at autopsy if possible if they are used to kill. There is also a section on how they kill rather than just provide medical assistance. this can be a bit technical but Harkup explains things in as simple a way as practical for the non-chemist. This is then followed by consideration of any antidotes or remedial processes from an overdose. We then look at other real life cases to better understand the problem of the poison administered and finally a look at Christie’s own experience with handling the drug. An excellent and comprehensive overview both of the poison itself and how it featured in Christie’s books and in the real world.

The chemicals looked at in this volume are the eponymous Arsenic then Belladonna, Cyanide, Digitalis, Eserine, Hemlock, Monkshood, Nicotine, Opium, Phosphorus, Ricin, Strychnine, Thallium and Veronal. There is a second volume already out in hardback but as I have ‘A is for Arsenic’ in paperback I will wait for the matching book. But I’m really looking forward to ‘V is for Venom’ which is due out in paperback on the 24th September 2026.

I received this as a Christmas present and couldn’t be more pleased. I have been a fan of Adam Rutherford and Hannah Fry for several years after first hearing their Radio 4 and BBC World Service show ‘The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry’. Hannah Fry is an Associate Professor in the mathematics of cities from University College London whilst Adam Rutherford is a geneticist at the same university. Both of them have also done a significant amount of TV work and have written several books individually, this is the first time they have written together. For those not familiar with their radio programme they tackle a listener raised query each week with scientific rigour and a considerable amount of humour and this book reads like a continuation of their radio show. If you want to sample their programme, and I recommend you do so, then all the 115 episodes they have made in the five years since they started it are available here.

From the introduction of Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything – Abridged

At first the layout of the book is a little confusing, apart from the main text there are numerous ‘boxes’ that go into more detail on a point raised however these sometimes appear half way through not just paragraphs but often midway through a sentence so you have to read on and then go back to the box if you don’t want to lose your place. The boxes can be up to three pages long so leaping then back to where the main text was up to caused me to reread a few sections to make sure I was back up to speed, there are also numerous footnotes to keep up with. Once you get to grips with the odd layout though the book is great fun and bounces around the various scientific concepts that are covered with enough detail to provide an interesting learning experience without going too deep so that you feel the need to browse the internet to follow what is being said. This is very much like their radio show which is good as I tend to listen to that at half past two in the morning on the World Service when I can’t sleep but clearly am not about to get out of bed to check something.

The topics raised are definitely varied, from how you see things (touched on in two separate chapters) to a library that contains every piece of text ever, to does your dog love you, via how to calculate the circumference of the Earth and confirmation biases, with lots more besides those. You would think that with such a vast range of subjects it would just be a hodgepodge of ideas but instead it reads more as if the two authors were having a chat with you, in a pub maybe over a couple of drinks, now that would be fun. There is even a section which attempts to define the average reader of the book and I’m sorry to disappoint Rutherford and Fry but the only bit you got right for me was that I buy more than ten books a year (more like ten books a month). I would also have liked to be a bit more of Hannah Fry’s field of mathematics, there is definitely plenty from Adam Rutherford’s genetics although I appreciate that maths is a bit of a turn off for many readers so presumably that was deliberate.

The book was published by Bantam Press in October 2021 and as I write this it is currently on the Amazon UK lists 738 in Books, 2 in History of Science (Books), 3 in Biological Evolution and 3 in Cosmology so they definitely have a hit on their hands across multiple disciplines, and quite rightly so. Go buy the book you will definitely learn something new and via the comprehensive section on references you can then head off to go deeper into bits that catch your interest. I’m definitely going to be reading more about Jonathan Basilie’s version of Borge’s total library, the distortion of astronauts eyeballs, end of the world prophesies failing and dogs and their eyebrows. I knew nothing about Borge’s library or for that matter dog eyebrows before reading this book who knows what will strike you as interesting or at least odd enough to want to know more about.