Philip Hilts’s Smoke Screen (Addison Wesley, $22, ISBN 0 201 48836 1)
tells the almost incredible story of the fightback by American tobacco companies
after the public had become convinced that cigarettes were truly, as in British
slang, “coffin nails”. Hilts writes fiercely about such cynicism, in a rage that
any reader will feel, too, especially over the excerpts of evidence from
Congressional and courtroom hearings. The recipe now being worked out for a safe
cigarette is enough to make you laugh—or cry.
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