Neil Bradbury

Bradbury teaches physiology at a medical school in Chicago, and A Taste for Poison takes eleven poisons, explains precisely what each does to a cell, and hangs a real murder case on every chapter: insulin, atropine, ricin, polonium. The chemistry is the point and the crimes carry it along. The subtitle promises eleven deadly molecules and the killers who used them, and it delivers exactly that. His view is that a poisoner has to know some biology, which turns the science itself into a form of evidence.