Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65036 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

The Guardian, May 5, 2005
A very thought-provoking book.

Review
Meticulously researched, this book reads like a novel and a reader could pick up enough colourful anecdotes on which to dine out for some time. (The Lancet )

The Elements of Murder contains as much malice and murder as any thriller, but without the mystery -Empsley explains it all as lucidly a Sherlock Holmes

Endlessly fascinating book...Every page reveals delights and horrors...It is the perfect book to take on a long-haul flight (Telegraph )

The Elements of Murder is full of such intriguing nuggets...Emsley must have been an outstanding chemistry teacher.

Times Higher Education Suppliment, April 29, 2005
He describes chemistry with a light touch that makes the book accessable to non-chemists and, indeed, non-scientists.

Customer Reviews

Just what the Doctor ordered.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It struck an excellent balance between scientific insight and salacious gossip. What a combination!

I was reading this in my hospital bed needing something demanding enough to save me from terminal boredom, but that I could pick up in short bursts. Just what the Doctor ordered.

It didn't meet my expectations.
This book was promising. My advice would be to read the introduction which is well written and interesting and ignore the rest of it. Everything that followed the introduction was of such a poor quality that I could not believe the author of the introduction to be the same as for the main body of the book. For reasons best known to the author there were digressions into vitriolic judgements on the sexual proclivities of King Charles and some quite unsustainable remarks about Isaac Newton. What a shame! I was really looking forward to this book, and whereas the introduction had some very nicely written paragraphs the main body of the book was in ungainly prose. I didn't read much beyond the third chapter -perhaps it improved.
For something much more worthwhile read Poisons: From Hemlock to Botox and the Killer Bean of Calabar by Peter Macinnins.

A Cheap 'Cut and Paste' Effort.
The concept of the book is clever: it takes the main heavy metal elements and discusses their uses and misuses, in respect of murder.
The result, however, is disappointing. It appears to have been written across a weekend by taking a few very basis facts and then pasting in chunks of `off the shelf' (often rambling) criminal biography.
Considering Emsley is a scientist most parts of the book are so un-scientific to be exasperating. I quote just two examples: in respect of the possibility of lead ingestion being the cause of gout (in the 1800's) `there is no reason why this could (cause gout) but it does' (!). Equally the madness of King George III he attributes to lead (despite a mass of contrary research on this subject - which he fails to quote), `because he was fond of lemonade and sauerkraut' (allegedly high in lead).
Readable, but a really cheap `put-together'. Mr Emsley, please spend a little more time