Noemi Harnickell: Fatale Flora

In the organizer's words:

Of poisonous plants and mean people

True crime meets botany: the most beautiful poisonous murders from mandrake to cyanide

Welcome to the most dangerous garden in the world!

At first glance, Alnwick Castle Gardens appear harmless: well-tended hedges, flowering beds, lush greenery. But behind its gates lies the deadliest garden in the world: Poison Garden. Founded by Jane Percy, Duchess of Northumberland.

This is where Noemi's journey into the world of poisons begins. Fascinated, she follows John Knox as he explains the plants and their devastating effects to visitors, from mandrake to castor oil tree. And Noemi understands: Where there is poison, there are murderers.

Monkshood in a curry dish, atropine in a gin and tonic, ricin in a cup of tea. Poison often meets culinary ingenuity. Noemi tells exciting stories about the most beautiful, bizarre and legendary poison murders in history, their protagonists and murderesses who are still underestimated today.

About the deadly potential in our gardens and human abysses - these are murderously good stories!

Noemi Harnickell, born in Bern in 1992, works as a freelance journalist and writes for Die Zeit and the online magazine Republik, among others. She was nominated for the German Reporter Award 2020 for her report "Would you fire this man?". She studied history and Slavic studies in Bern, Fribourg and Krakow and graduated from the Reutlingen School of Reporting.