Christie, Agatha - The Pale Horse (1961)

Review by Xavier Lechard

Rating: B+

You can't stop progress, and in these industrial times murder is an industry as well, as Mark Easterbrook will soon discover. Though not one of Christie's most outrageous pieces of plotting, “The Pale Horse” is still a fun read, all the more interesting as it updates the mid - thriller formula she experienced in the twenties and thirties, with a sympathetic young couple braving mysterious (and merciless) conspirators. This throwback to a previous period has rejuvenating effects on Christie's writing, making “The Pale Horse” an astonishingly fresh book, even though subject is rather gloomy and the Duchess of Crime was over seventy at the time. Humor never loses its rights even in the darkest moments (thanks mostly to the matchless Ariadne Oliver) and Agatha delivers some tasty epigraphs and observations on Shakespeare, the modern world and other subjects. Recommended.

Review by Nick Fuller

5/5

At once stylish and sinister, this convincingly handled tale of murder-by-witchcraft-for-sale is Christie's last triumph. The story begins with the murder by the forces of evil of a man of God, returning from the death-bed confession of a murdered woman; the list of names found on his corpse lead to three witches who kill by operating on the death-wish; the play with morbid psychology is unusual, and the séance rivals that of Gladys Mitchell's The Worsted Viper (1943). Characters, including the vulpine cripple Venables (the use of the invalid in the wheel-chair is superb both as red herring and as double-edged clue), the oleaginous Mr. Bradley, and the insignificant chemist Zachariah Osborne, are vivid and unusual, and it will be an alert reader who spots the identity of the villain before the professional Lejeune; and the brilliant method (showing the author's medical training) before the amateur Mark Easterbrook.