I came to this book via the podcast Criminalia. I started listening to the podcast last year and spent about 3 months blasting through all available episodes whenever I was in a car. The hosts, Holly Frey and Maria Trimarchi did their entire first season on lady poisoners, and they had Lisa Perrin on for an interview to highlight her book of the same topic when it published last year (of which they also wrote the introduction). I had loved the interview and been intrigued by the way they described the artistry of the book and had put in a library request immediately upon completing the episode (which was relatively recently as I had saved this episode for a “I don’t want to listen to any of these shows” situation).
I had not been expecting to pick up such an incredibly beautiful book when I went to get my library holds, but this book is STUNNING, featuring so many design elements of arsenic green. Perrin’s work as an illustrator and letterer came to the forefront, and her writing is engaging and conversational. I am going to be very sad to give it back to the library once my renewal is over. It’s a beautiful blend of being a book you can flip through for the section headers and illustrated pages featuring the poisoners (not all poisoners get full page art, but most do) and one that you can read straight through or stop and read any section or chapter whenever you feel like it. Perrin put a lot of work into the introductory chapters to lay out the history of poisoning and our understanding of poisons, and the poisons most likely to make an appearance in the book. Similarly, Perrin lays out her sources by chapter in the back of the book, making it incredibly simple to do a deeper dive into the poisoners who may have caught your attention more than the others (or in my case, your best friend writes for crime podcasts and you can give her a heads up on ones that might work for the upcoming seasons of that show).
