The Inheritor's Powder: A Cautionary Tale of Poison, Betrayal and Greed

· Weidenfeld & Nicolson · Narrated by Patience Tomlinson
Audiobook
8 hr 18 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

All was quiet in the Bodle home in Plumstead village on the morning of 2 November 1833. In the large ten bedroom farmhouse, the maid Sophia Taylor began preparing breakfast while, at the cottage down the track, Mary Higgins came down to set the fire.

But all was not as it seemed that morning...When the local doctor was summoned several hours later he found four women suffering from severe vomiting and stomach pains whilst the master of the house was delirious with pain. His suspicions raised, the doctor contacted Michael Faraday at his laboratory in Woolwich.

So began a chain of events that would grip the entire nation. For in the 19th century, criminal poisoning was terrifyingly easy, yet almost impossible to prove - a situation that resulted in no end of mischief. 'The fell spirit of the Borgias' was said to be sweeping across the land and as the panic reached fever pitch, so the race to find the definitive test began...

Read by Patience Tomlinson. Patience trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and has since appeared in many roles in theatres across the country. She has made countless BBC radio broadcasts of plays, poetry and short stories, as well as regular audio books and television work such as The Day Today, Friday Night Armistice and In The Red.

(p) 2013 Isis Publishing Ltd

About the author

Sandra Hempel is a journalist and author who specialises in health and social issues. She has written for a wide variety of popular newspapers and magazines, including THE TIMES, THE SUNDAY TIMES and THE MAIL ON SUNDAY, as well as specialist publications. Her first book THE MEDICAL DETECTIVE - which tells the story of one doctor's fight to stop the killer cholera epidemics that devastated nineteenth century Britain - won the Medical Journalists' Association Book Award and the British Medical Association Book Award for the public understanding of science.

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