As I learned all-too-well back in late 2016 when I published a review of Peter P. Marra’s & Chris Santella’s “Cat Wars,” entering into any discussion about the potential harm to the environment or ecosystem caused by companion animals is a sure way to incite the ire of a small but highly vocal portion of the human population.
Kudos indeed to the folks at Bloomsbury Sigma for thinking of The Well-read Naturalist when rolling out the advance notices for Kathryn Harkup’s new book A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie. After all, what if not ingenious distillations of the natural world – as well as important clues to the identity of the culprit – were the classic poisons featured in Dame Agatha’s famous mystery novels?