RaveThe Washington TimesWith grisly enthusiasm, the author has devoured medical journals, autopsy reports, papers from the University of Maryland’s annual Historical Clinicopathological Conference and tomes bearing such tiles as The History of Corpse Medicine. The resulting harvest is a collection of stories about powerful people cut down before their time ... Some of the most fascinating chapters are devoted to scientific explanations to the mysterious deaths of Edward VI, Caravaggio, Mozart and Napoleon. Lesser-known characters are also given their due ... Certainly the most chilling are the contemporary stories of political poisoning, such as the mysterious fate of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and the brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un ... The most satanic are the lethal methods used against anti-Putin activists ... As a writer, Eleanor Herman has a British sensibility in her choice of metaphor or quirky oddity. She writes vividly and with great humor, combining detailed research with easy narrative, making her book both enthralling and sinister.
