Allan Massie
Toxic Relations
City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris
By Holly Tucker
W W Norton 310pp £20.99
Holly Tucker is a professor of French and biomedical ethics and society – an unusual combination that perhaps accounts for this book: a history of the Affair of the Poisons, the greatest scandal of the reign of Louis XIV. The affair began with the trial of the Marquise de Brinvilliers in 1675 on suspicion of poisoning her father and two brothers. This gave rise to numerous other allegations of poisoning in high places. It’s a lurid and horrible story that touched the throne: the king’s most famous mistress, the Marquise de Montespan, was among those caught up in it. She was accused of attempting to poison the king after realising that Louis’s attraction to her was fading. Other prominent nobles were implicated too, at least on the fringes, but, apart from the Marquise de Brinvilliers, who was eventually found guilty of murder and executed, most of those involved were lowlifes belonging to the criminal underworld of Paris. Nonetheless, fuel was added to the flames of suspicion by Brinvilliers’s assertion that ‘half of the nobility have done the same things, if I felt like talking, I’d ruin them all’.
The hero of Tucker’s book is Nicolas de la Reynie, a lawyer from Limoges who served as police chief of Paris. During his tenure he cleaned up the city and provided it with street lighting for the first time, but it is his investigation into the Affair of the Poisons
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm