Cathy Cobb

I suppose you could call this a good introductory read to the history of chemistry and the details of its understanding. However, the problem, in my opinion, with this book is that it is a popular history; and as such it has little of any real information. The book in its entirety truly does read more like a history than a scientific treatise, and contains more biographic commentary that chemical information. This heads to the point that the book does not treat the subject as a development of scientific knowledge or understanding, but focuses on the incidents of its history and the personalities involved therein. In conclusion: despite its great size and grand scope this book is entirely too light and lacks in critical thought or examination.… (mehr)

Interesting title, even more interesting book. I would have to take some exception to the "armchair sleuth" part, at least *this* armchair sleuth. The chemistry is dumbed down a lot, but not enough for someone who hasn't had at least some training in chemistry. I could follow along on the experiments and do okay with the sleuthing part, or at least understand the explanation but the part that introduces the chemistry was a bit (or a lot in some cases) over my head. Still, I read to the end because the way the experiments were done was fascinating and seeing how things reacted was cool. Not that I actually performed any of the experiments (everyone is told they can and exactly how to do each experiment).

I didn't much care for the cutesy names we gave each of the people involved in the "sleuth" part of this - for example Candy Hart (a victim) or Arty Fax (museum worker)but I could pretty much ignore them.

If you are a writer of mysteries and you always wanted to know what causes some of the chemical reactions that are then discovered forensically, this is the book for you! And, you can reproduce the reactions in your own home with things like lemons, celery, ph-testing kits for an aquarium, and batteries. It was a lot of fun to read the experiments, too bad I couldn't follow the chemistry.… (mehr)