Plot help

[wishfulthinking]

I have a character who needs to kill off another character. It is too cliche to have a vial of poison she just happened to have.

So I'm thinking about a common alergy. What alergen can be crushed and poured into a drink or used on food? I'm thinking peanuts would be too easily detectable.

Help!

(edited to add: it's a female character, so I thought poison the best way, but other suggestions welcome.)

 

[carsonshepherd]

have her serve the victim a nice lobster

 

[wishfulthinking]

Opps. Very historical Europe. Don't know where she'd find lobster either

 

[zeb1094]

Iodine?

 

[dysphemist]

You could always go with peanut oil. Some chicken recipes have it and it isn't really detectable. (I've had a friend end up in a hospital because of that.)

 

[Liar]

I have a character who needs to kill off another character. It is too cliche to have a vial of poison she just happened to have.

Eh.... depends. Who is she? When? Your average soccer mom could not pull it off, but The Countess of Whatever in Victorian times just might.

What's wrong with offing the character with something pointy? It's almost always a safe bet, and you can always plausibly find something around the house that can serve the purpose.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I'm not sure if this would still work, but certain kinds of mushrooms seem innocuous, until it is too late. May be cliche, but in some eras, it might work. It did for Sulla in Colleen McCullough's First Man In Rome series, when he poisoned his mistress to get enough cash for a higher social standing.

 

[R. Richard]

I'm not sure if this would still work, but certain kinds of mushrooms seem innocuous, until it is too late. May be cliche, but in some eras, it might work. It did for Sulla in Colleen McCullough's First Man In Rome series, when he poisoned his mistress to get enough cash for a higher social standing.

Outstanding suggestion! Best of all, there are non-poisonous mushrooms that look almost exactly like the poisonous ones. You could have your character cook up both kinds and serve the poisonous ones to her victim, while showing the police that she ate the same thing [almost].

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Indeed. VERY difficult to tell apart.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Outstanding suggestion! Best of all, there are non-poisonous mushrooms that look almost exactly like the poisonous ones. You could have your character cook up both kinds and serve the poisonous ones to her victim, while showing the police that she ate the same thing [almost].

Dorthy Sawyer used tat device, in abook called "The Documents in The Case" The main point of that book was that none of the characters were nice at all, it was a fascinating departure from standard Englishwoman-mystery-writer style.

In her book "Strong POison," she had the bad guy habituate himself to arsenic, which is actually easy to do!
Then, he made an omelette for the two of them- his brother died, he lived. The doctor diagnosed it as "acute Dyspepsia" untill, of course Peter Whimsey came snooping around.

 

[fifty5]

I have a character who needs to kill off another character. It is too cliche to have a vial of poison she just happened to have.

So I'm thinking about a common alergy. What alergen can be crushed and poured into a drink or used on food? I'm thinking peanuts would be too easily detectable.

Cats and dogs seem inocent, but some folk are alergic to them. Needs more research (what bits of the animal, how bad is the alergy, etc.), but could go into a plot quite easily - either as detectable ("Why did you buy the animal the week before he died?"), or not ("But officer, I've had dear little Bendigo for years!") - and you can pick a breed to match any nationality or class.

 

[SamanthaSmith]

I have a character who needs to kill off another character. It is too cliche to have a vial of poison she just happened to have.

So I'm thinking about a common alergy. What alergen can be crushed and poured into a drink or used on food? I'm thinking peanuts would be too easily detectable.

Help!

(edited to add: it's a female character, so I thought poison the best way, but other suggestions welcome.)

Try unclefesterbooks.com you may pick up some ideas there...

Hi Sarah! Sammie

 

[wishfulthinking]

Thanks guys!

I'm thinking the peanut oil has it - this wouldn't be too different a colour from whiskey?

Mushrooms -i like the idea, but she isn't inviting the person around for dinner, so going to be a bit hard making this fly.

Now all I nead is a reason why peanut or almond oil would be in the larder in historical times. Hmmm...

(Hi back, Sammie )

 

[BlackShanglan]

Foxglove is something that healthy people can usually survive but that is likely to kill someone with a weak heart. It can be slipped into a salad without much difficulty.

Arsenic is difficult to detect by taste or smell and was very common in earlier days. I'm not sure how far back in "historical" days you're thinking, but in the 1800's arsenic was widely used in dyes and ended up in clothing, wallpaper, and even food packaging. It was cheap and easy to get hold of, and a reasonably clever character could easily derive it from common household goods and slip into a drink or food. If you'd care to know more on the topic, I can send you a good article on it.

If you're looking for oils in earlier time periods, you might have better luck (if you're in England, where peanuts were not widely used if you go back very far) with walnut oil. Walnuts can also trigger very severe allergic reactions, and the oil does not taste overpoweringly of walnuts. If you dressed a salad with some and used vinegar with it, the victim would be unlikely to detect it by taste or smell alone. Of course, that all depends on the poisoner knowing that the person has an acute allergy to walnuts.

I've also met or heard of people with deadly strength allergies to shellfish and to mustard.

Shanglan

 

[gauchecritic]

Now I'm not saying it never happened in the 1800's but it seems to me that severe allergy reactions are a relatively modern thing. (Or maybe they just didn't know about them then).

Like the 'super bug' MRSA which I understand has only developed because of modern barrier nursing, extreme allergies (to my mind) are a modern product of the extremely refined diet of today.

I'm of the belief that pre-McD society had a much more robust gut and everyday immune system than today, which would make an allergy poisoner something of an anachronism.

 

[TheEarl]

Arsenic is difficult to detect by taste or smell and was very common in earlier days. I'm not sure how far back in "historical" days you're thinking, but in the 1800's arsenic was widely used in dyes and ended up in clothing, wallpaper, and even food packaging. It was cheap and easy to get hold of, and a reasonably clever character could easily derive it from common household goods and slip into a drink or food. If you'd care to know more on the topic, I can send you a good article on it.

Apple pips.

They are a natural source of arsenic and, if crushed into food in sufficient quantities, would be more than lethal enough.

The Earl

 

[dr_mabeuse]

WHy don't you slip a couple of bees under her sheets? Anaphylactic shock due to bee stings is pretty common and can be quite fatal if not treated immediately.

I'm not aware of any other food allergies that are as dangerous and potentially lethal as peanut allergy. I used to be allergic to all sorts of things, and the most that would happen is that they'd make me wheeze a little. I understand that there are some people who are very allergic to chocolate though. (Poor souls)

If the murderer has access to a hypodermic syringe, you might try a quick jab with a solution of potassium chloride. That's what's in lethal injections, and it stops the heart almost dead in its tracks. Very tough to find in the body too, since we're already full of potassium (It's the sodium/potassium ratio in the blood that does the killing.)

I've always liked the idea of catching them while they're cleaning the toilet and pouring bleach and ammonia in there. It forms chloramine, a very toxic gas. You just have to hold their head in the toilet till they get a good whiff, and it looks like they collapsed due to a terrible toilet-bowl cleaning accident.

 

[gauchecritic]

Ahh Mr Huggins you seem to have caught me cleaning my toilet bowl.

Indeed I have Miss Poundberry. And a very clean toilet you keep. But what is this? Bleach? Ammonia? Goodbye Miss Poundberry.