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Meeting Professor Taylor.

Poison Panic, the true story of arsenic deaths in 1840s Essex, was published in 2016. Fatal Evidence, my biography of leading nineteenth-century forensic scientist Alfred Swaine Taylor, was published in 2017 and was recommended in the Guardian’s Best summer books 2018.

I’ve appeared on BBC1’s Murder, Mystery and My Family and Radio 4’s Punt PI. I’ve written about strange discoveries in parish registers and local newspapers for Fortean Times, genealogy how-to’s for Family Tree magazine and guest blogs for Findmypast and Historic UK. I give the occasional talk – see photos of “The Back Doors to Death” at Highgate Cemetery, and “Fearful and Wonderful” at LSK auctioneers.

For genealogy and parish register transcriptions, see Essex & Suffolk Surnames. For romantic fiction, see Eleanor Harkstead.