Curare, that deadly South American poison frequently described in detective stories, is not a concoction. The paralytic arrow poison fancied by several whodunnit authors, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, eventually turned out to be the cornerstone of modern anaesthesia.

Europe came to know about this native poison in the 16th century when explorers travelled deep into the South American rain forest and found warring tribes using curare to anoint their darts and arrows.

The so-called ‘flying death’ caused by the poison indeed has some mystical properties. Just like the snake venom, it doesn’t harm if swallowed (unless one has an ulcer in the stomach). If injected into the blood, curare kills by paralysing its victim. It does so by blocking the action of a chemical called acetylcholine, the messenger that carries signals from the brain to the muscles.

The discovery of this fact has been a result of a brilliant research which has revealed the wider story of how nerve cells communicate with each other and with their target organs.

Feldman has written a spine-chilling thriller, mixing investigation and folklore.