AUSTRALIAN REVIEWS OF "THE POISON PRINCIPLE"

" a gift of a story and Bell tells it to near perfection."

The Age, Melbourne
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"Gail Bell applies Flaubert's relentless reality in The Poison Principle, an elegantly written memoir about her search for the truth behind her family's darkest secret."

"A book which is a fine thriller, a richly detailed pharmacopoeia and a splendid dissertation on references to poison in literature."

Sydney Morning Herald
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"Bell has distilled a wise and knowing book."

Australian Book Review
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"It is about as rich and strange a history of this morbidly fascinating subject as one could hope for."

The Age, Melbourne
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"Drawing on fairytales, literature and medical case histories, Bell seasons and thickens her family narrative with fascinating accounts of the effects and detection of the great poisonings in history, from Cleopatra to Napoleon."

The Weekend Australian Magazine
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"For somebody trained as a scientist, Bell displays a dazzling aptitude for good writing. This book is a feat of alchemy in itself: a heady brew of scientific fact and the arcane."

Qantas Inflight Magazine
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"What more could you ask from a book?"

Brisbane News, June 2001.
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"Bell, a beautiful writer, elegantly ekes out the mysterious tale of Dr William Macbeth (her grandfather) who was reputed to have poisoned two of his sons in 1927."

The Daily Telegraph
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"Bell, a chemist, writes engagingly of poisons - how they work, their history and includes case studies. In the course of the story, Bell forms a fascinating profile of poisons."

City Weekly
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"The tone of the narrative is blackly humorous, good natured, relaxed, entertaining, but precise in its scholarship, as the reader explores such issues as the femininity of poisoning, of power, of beauty and ugliness, of the tragic and comic nature of poisoning, of the potential of everyone to be a poisoner, but most of all, of the clandestine nature of truth, and the way in which historical monsters, and legends, are created."

Suite 101
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"Socrates, Cleopatra, Shakespeare's Claudius, Crippen and the St Albans murderer, they all finally lead back to Grandfather Macbeth and the long awaited culmination of Gail Bell's investigation. It is worth waiting for."

The Canberra Times
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"The Poison Principle has everything: an intriguing-really intriguing-personal story as a base, and a glorious and eccentric range of facts and stories and reflections about poison in life and literature growing brilliantly out of this base."

Varuna News
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"an unusual, sensitive memoir written in a thoughtful, lovely tone"

Manly Daily
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"a breath-taking journey via close-lipped relatives' memories, and an intricate investigation reveals the truth."

Australian Women's Weekly
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"A fascination with poisons and a deep family secret full of murder and intrigue has led to a fascinating new book by chemist Gail Bell."

The Northern Star