A Whiff Of Death

When graduate student Ralph Neufeld is found dead in a university laboratory, apparently killed by a chemical experiment gone wrong, the incident looks like an unfortunate occupational hazard. Laboratories contain heat, glass, toxic substances and ambitious young researchers working late into the evening, so an accidental death is not entirely beyond the imagination. Professor Louis Brade, however, notices that certain details do not fit—and a scientist confronted with inconsistent results is liable to become inconveniently curious.

A Whiff of Death is Isaac Asimov’s excursion into the academic murder mystery, a world in which professional jealousy, intellectual rivalry and the desperate pursuit of recognition prove every bit as dangerous as the chemicals stored in the cupboards. Brade begins examining Neufeld’s work and discovers that beneath the orderly appearance of university science lies a generous supply of resentment, insecurity and personal ambition. Peer review, it turns out, is not always the most severe judgement awaiting an unsuccessful researcher.

Rather than providing futuristic robots or galactic empires, Asimov builds his mystery around chemistry, laboratory procedure and the habits of working scientists. Evidence lies in experimental records, technical knowledge and small discrepancies that might mean nothing to the police but rather more to somebody accustomed to asking why the expected reaction did not occur. Fortunately, the science is woven into the investigation without requiring the reader to sit an examination afterwards.

Professor Brade makes an engagingly unflamboyant detective. He has no exotic moustache, private income or collection of unusually convenient aristocratic acquaintances. Instead, he possesses scientific training, careful reasoning and an uncomfortable awareness of the tensions within his own department. His investigation proceeds by observation and deduction, proving that even without a positronic brain, a human being can sometimes arrive at a useful conclusion.

Originally published as The Death Dealers, the novel was later revised and issued under the much better title A Whiff of Death, which manages to suggest both chemistry and homicide while remaining unlikely to attract anyone searching for an air freshener. It is an intelligent, compact mystery from an author who understood both the scientific environment and the alarming things people will do when careers, reputations and research results are involved.

This 1973 Sphere edition is in Near Fine condition. It has survived more than half a century with remarkably little deterioration and presents no visible indication of laboratory contamination, careless experimentation or exposure to suspicious vapours. An especially attractive copy for collectors of Asimov, vintage crime fiction or mysteries in which the solution depends upon something more reliable than the murderer abruptly confessing in the final chapter.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where all chemical odours are presumed to originate from ageing paper unless subsequent analysis proves otherwise.

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