UW Prof on Point of Inquiry

UW journalism professor Deborah Blum is the featured guest on this week's Point of Inquiry podcast. She and host Chris Mooney talk about, among other things, her latest book The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.

With her new book The Poisoner’s Handbook, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Deb Blum has done just that. Blum takes a page from the "CSI" franchise, and moves that familiar narrative of crime, intrigue, and high tech bad-guy catching back into the early days of the 20th century. There, in jazz age New York, she chronicles the birth of forensic chemistry at the hands of two scientific and public health pioneers—the city’s chief medical examiner Charles Norris, and his chemistry whiz side-kick Alexander Gettler.