Time to Swallow Your Poison

Tonight, PBS-TV’s American Experience series will broadcast a two-hour episode titled “The Poisoner’s Handbook,” based on Deborah Blum’s terrific 2010 non-fiction book, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. Here’s the news release synopsis of that show: “In 1918, on the brink of becoming the largest metropolis in the world, New York City hired Charles Norris as its first scientifically trained medical examiner. Over the course of a decade and a half, Norris and his extraordinarily driven and talented chief toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, turned forensic chemistry into a formidable science, sending impatient heirs, jilted lovers, and desperate debtors to the electric chair.”

You’ll find a preview of the show right here. American Experience is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

READ MORE: “Review: The Poisoner’s Handbook on PBS: Forensic Medicine’s Birth,” by Robert Lloyd (Los Angeles Times).