Depite having taken numerous classes in toxicology, this book helped me more when trying to write about poisons when writing short stories. It describes how the poisons work, how fast-acting they are, what forms they take-generally, everything a frustrated mystery wanna-be writer could need. -I didn't do any fact-checking in this book, though, so you might want to cross-check the information given in a toxicology book just to CYA. ( )