A Beautiful Poison

By: Lydia Kang

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

Just beyond the Gilded Age, in the mist-covered streets of New York, the deadly Spanish influenza ripples through the city. But with so many victims in her close circle, young socialite Allene questions if the flu is really to blame. All appear to have been poisoned - and every death was accompanied by a mysterious note.

Desperate for answers and dreading her own engagement to a wealthy gentleman, Allene returns to her passion for scientific discovery and recruits her long-lost friends, Jasper and Birdie, for help. The investigation brings her closer to Jasper, an apprentice medical examiner at Bellevue Hospital who still holds her heart, and offers the delicate Birdie a last-ditch chance to find a safe haven before her fragile health fails.

As more of their friends and family die, alliances shift, lives become entangled, and the three begin to suspect everyone - even each other. As they race to find the culprit, Allene, Birdie, and Jasper must once again trust each other, before one of them becomes the next victim.

©2017 Lydia Kang (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Excerpt from “Two Fusiliers” by Robert Graves, from The Complete Poems Volume I, edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward. Reprinted with kind permission of Carcanet Press Limited, Manchester, UK. © 1995 The Robert Graves Copyright Trust.

Unexpectedly excellent!

I listened for free with Kindle Unlimited, which is often a crap shoot. Some books are awful beyond belief and some are excellent. This was the latter. I passed on it a zillion times because I’m not a big mystery/thriller fan on audio, but this was so much more than just a mystery.

The mystery was actually quite complex, and I had no clue “whodunit.” Beyond the solving the mystery aspect were the characters, all of whom were well done but the three main characters were written with such nuance. You root for all three of them—even the one woman who is rather selfish at the beginning of the story still has redeeming qualities. Each character grows as a person as they try to make good lives for themselves, which looks different for all three of them.

Loved the historical aspect—so well done—and loved the audio narrator.

I think this might be my favorite fiction read of the year.

Meh.

It’s hard to write a story where one of the major characters is doomed to an early death. It took forever for the inevitable to happen. Overall the story dragged.

The narrator pronounced a lot of words wrong. “Grippe” is pronounced like “grip,” not “gripe” as the narrator said it. There were a bunch of these errors which I found disconcerting.

excellent!!

This is unusual mystery, with people I got to know and love. A mystery that keeps you locked to your book, and a story that at times brought tears to my eyes. If you like history, this is a book you will love as well as a mystery, and a love story. Love that is about people who truly love and care for each other. The end was a total surprise for me, that doesn't happen to me. I totaly recommend this book.

One of the best books listen to

This book kept me enthralled through the whole book in the end usually I'm pretty good at solving mysteries , but this was not able to solve

A good mystery

We listened to A Beautiful Poison on audiobook. Unfortunately it was so long and we were traveling, that it was hard to follow. It would be better read as a novel.