History Main / FingerLickingPoison

* ComicBook/{{Diabolik}} once used this method, soaking with cyanide the text of a speech a journalist would later read to call [[SympatheticInspectorAntagonist Ginko]] an incompetent and Diabolik himself a lousy criminal. [[JustifiedTrope Diabolik choose this method specifically because he knew the journalist had this habit and wanted to kill him in a most spectacular fashion]].

* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internecine_Project The Internicine Project]]'' ended with the murderer receiving a hand-written notebook from one of his victims. and on the last page it said [[spoiler:"I arranged for this to be sent to you after I am dead, and the pages have been soaked in poison that is absorbed through the skin".]]

* Classic example: in Alexandre Dumas' ''Literature/LaReineMargot'' (AKA ''Marguerite de Valois''), poisoned book is used in attempt on King Henry of Navarre's life, but the plan backfires with disastrous results. Earlier in the same novel, even more devious plan to poison Henry via his paramour's lipstick is employed [[spoiler: but thwarted by the would-be poisoner who couldn't murder said paramour in cold blood]].
* While it isn't poison, per se, in ''Literature/RedSeasUnderRedSkies'', the two remaining Gentlemen Bastards use this as a way to cheat at an uncheatable casino. They're playing cards against a pair of women, one of which is known to eat chocolates and lick her fingers as a part of her mental game to throw off her opponents. So they dust their suit linings with a powerful sleeping drug so they can keep coating the cards with it. This works especially well since the game is

* In the ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode"Page Turner", the killer coats the pages of a book in thallium to poison his victims.

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'''Finger-Lickin' Poisoned Books:'''

'''Other Lickable Objects:'''

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[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC: TabletopRPG]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[AC:Anime and Manga]]

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

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[[AC:Real Life]]

* In Creator/RobinHobb's ''[[RealmOfTheElderlings Assassin's Apprentice]]'', one of Fitz-Chivalry's assassination ploys was to [[spoiler: poison the cutlery instead of the food.]]
* During the [[{{Belgariad}} Mallorean]] series, Sadi kills a man by coating the man's soup spoon with poison.
* ''ASongOfIceAndFire'': twice, with the same method. First the prologue of A Feast for Crows: [[spoiler: The Alchemist (Jaqen H'ghar's new personality) pays Pate, a novice in the Citadel with a poisoned coin. Pate bites the coin, then the dust.]] Second, [[spoiler:Arya's first sanctioned killing in Dance: she deliberately botches a cutpursery to replace one of the coins of a ship owner with a poisoned one. The owner then pays a greedy insurer with said coin. The insurer also has a habit of biting the coins...]].

* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Time Machine", one victim was killed by having strychnine placed in the bowl of his pipe.

* In the ''CSINewYork'' episode"Page Turner", the killer coats the pages of a book in thallium to poison his victims.

* While not highly toxic by itself, Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) has the property of being quickly and easily absorbed through skin contact, allowing easy contact absorption of whatever else happens to be mixed with it. This allows a deadly but hard to deliver poison to be easily absorbed through the skin.

* In RobinHobb's ''[[RealmOfTheElderlings Assassin's Apprentice]]'', one of Fitz-Chivalry's assassination ploys was to [[spoiler: poison the cutlery instead of the food.]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* Not exactly lickable, but in the movie ''TheMechanic'', Arthur Bishop [[spoiler:is killed when Steve coats the inside of his wine glass with poison]].
* Another not exactly lickable example occurs in ''Film/SherlockHolmesAGameOfShadows'' when [[spoiler:Irene Adler orders a fresh pot of tea in a restaurant because she suspects Moriarty of trying to poison her. Unbeknownst to her, Moriarty applied the poison to her tea strainer instead...]]

* In the Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', this is one of the theories as to how [[spoiler:Vetinari]] got poisoned, in an obvious shoutout to ''TheNameOfTheRose''.

* In ''CaseClosed'', a man was murdered via [[spoiler: poison applied to the temperature control of a cooking range on which a pot of water was boiling, after which he counted money and licked the poison from his fingers]].

* In ''[[Literature/PhyrneFisher Murder and Mendelssohn]]'', a conductor who habitually licks his finger before turning the pages of his score is poisoned when the killer coats the top of his score with arsenic.

* ''A Game at Dinner'', an in-game short story in some [[Franchise/TheElderScrolls Elder Scrolls]] games, has [[MagnificentBastard Helseth]] implying to his assembled dinner guests that he put poison on the cutlery of someone he knows has been spying on him. [[spoiler:It turns out to be a subversion, however, as Helseth was [[BluffingTheMurderer Bluffing The Spy]], and the real poison is the antidote he offers to the spy if they confess.]]

* In an old ''{{Perry Mason}}'' episode, it turns out the murder weapon was poison on a brooch and a dress with no pockets. The murderer was the dress designer and the victim was the model picked to show off the dress in question. The dress was designed to wrap around the wearer in a complicated way that required both hands to accomplish, and then be pinned closed with the brooch. Since the dress had no pockets, of course the model put the brooch in her mouth while tying the dress and get a lethal dose of the poison. The murderer tried to cover up the method by putting more poison into the bottle of champagne used to toast the success of the fashion show, but of course Perry saw through that one.

* In the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' adventure series ''Curse of the Crimson Throne'', [[spoiler: the King of Korvosa is killed this way, setting the entire plot in motion. The poison was placed on playing cards, and the king is a habitual nail-biter.]]