Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a professor of chemistry at a major university, and Deborah Blum's book was an impulse buy for me. After all, you can't go wrong with a popular science book about forensic toxicology and chemistry, can you? It appears that this is the first book I regret buying for my Kindle (I am trying to get a refund now). Most, if not all of the chemistry (and physics) in this book is entirely disconnected from the reality of science. Blum's treatment of poisons, analytical procedures and basic science ranges from simple misstatements, inaccuracies and misunderstandings to statements that are outright wrong. Some of these are listed below: * The action of mustard chemical warfare agents has nothing to do with "becoming a ferocious form of sulfuric acid". Mustards act through alkylative damage of DNA (and other biomolecules). * Sodium carbonate is not an acidic chemical. * HCN is not a "potent acid". * No additional source of hydrogen is needed to perform a Marsh test for arsenic. * It is not likely that arsenic compounds will crystallize in the tissues of a poisoning victim. * The Reinsch test is not a simple color test, as is implied by Blum's description. This is according to Gettler himself: [...] * Electrical current is not measured in volts. * Blum's description of radioactive decay, to borrow a phrase from Wolfgang Pauli, "is not even wrong". This list is by no means comprehensive - these are just some of the many cringe-inducing parts in the book. Blum spends pages upon pages on this bad science, talking about "ooze", "bubbling mess", "whizzing" elementary particles, "crystals of white arsenic" found in bodies, and "synthetic methyl alcohol called methanol". It is utterly amazing and incomprehensible that this mistreatment of science was allowed to proceed past editorial stage. A reader with a very basic level of scientific literacy will likely notice many of the mistakes. The fact that Blum used the period literature for her research is not an excuse for the extreme sloppiness of the book. Fact-checking with a high school-level chemistry textbook would have gone a long way to make "The Poisoner's Handbook" at least readable.