She is also the author of books including The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. As science writer for the Sacramento Bee, Blum wrote a series of articles examining the professional, ethical, and emotional conflicts between scientists who use animals in their research and animal rights activists who oppose that research. Titled “The Monkey Wars”, the series won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.