Three days later, after lingering in agony, wealthy George Bodle died in his bed at his farmhouse in Plumstead, leaving behind several heirs, including a son and grandson – both of whom were not on the best of terms with the family patriarch. That evening, the local doctor John Butler received an urgent summons: the family and their servants had collapsed and were seriously ill. On the morning of Saturday, November 2, 1833, the Bodle household sat down to their morning breakfast. Available at any corner shop for a few pence, arsenic was so frequently used by potential beneficiaries of wills that it was nicknamed "the inheritor's powder." But it was difficult to prove that a victim had been poisoned, let alone to identify the contaminated food or drink since arsenic was tasteless. In the first half of the nineteenth century, an epidemic swept Europe: arsenic poisoning. "Hempel skillfully weaves whodunit and courtroom drama to take us back to the beginnings of the controversial science of forensic toxicology." -Hugh Aldersey-Williams, author of Periodic Tales and Anatomies "Told with verve and a keen eye for suspense, The Inheritor's Powder is a great detective story all the way to the very last page." -Holly Tucker, author of Blood Work
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