Book Review: The Pale Horse
Agatha Christie's dexterous handling of mysteries is well-known. The way she pulls the wool over readers' eyes, tricking them to go astray when the truth has been cleverly concealed beneath seemingly innocuous conversations and reams of pointless descriptions. This sort of bamboozling nevertheless needs to be treaded upon carefully, but alas, even the shrewdest of the readers can fall prey to the Dame's bag of tricks!
Christie's The Pale Horse is a macabre, bone-chilling mystery that centres around black magic and witchcraft. Historian Mark Easterbrook, the narrator and protagonist, is having his meal at a tea shop when he becomes witness to a brawl between two girls over a man. He doesn't give the incident much thought until he stumbles upon the obituary notice of Ms. Thomasina Tuckerton, one of the girls involved in the fight, in the Death column of The Times.
Cut to Mrs. Davis, who is seriously ill and on her deathbed. Fearing for something and yet unable to pin it down, she calls on Father Gorman to whom she tells her suspicions and a list of names for further investigation. Death soon catches up with her and Father Gorman, though incredulous of the fantastic extraordinary story, writes down the names on a piece of paper and shoves it into his shoe. He is later clubbed to death by an unknown person, his pockets turned out in an unsuccessful attempt to recover the note.
Mark later gets the list from his police surgeon friend and uncovers a startling connection between the two incidents. Convinced of a sinister motive behind the deaths, he and his plucky lady-love Ginger decide to get to the heart of the matter.
Being the only novel from Christie to be completely based on the occult and supernatural, the setting has an ominous and ghoulish undercurrent all throughout, and the fact that Mark and Ginger are no seasoned detectives helps ratchet up suspense levels to great heights. The events precipitating to the climax have been thrillingly explored and to say that the denouement was a fantastic surprise would be an understatement.
Mark and Ginger make for a thoroughly enjoyable pair and their romance has been developed in a way that fits well with the narrative. Detective-Inspector Lejeune, who gets the thunder-stealing moment akin to Poirot, compensates for the amateurishness of the leads and exhibits uncanny shrewdness that belies his quiet disposition. Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the only known face, is her usual confused self and provides the most valuable break to the mystery. Diabolically clever, The Pale Horse (alluding to the place of residence of the three witches, themselves an allusion of Shakespeare's Macbeth) is deception at best.
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| The Pale Horse |
Cut to Mrs. Davis, who is seriously ill and on her deathbed. Fearing for something and yet unable to pin it down, she calls on Father Gorman to whom she tells her suspicions and a list of names for further investigation. Death soon catches up with her and Father Gorman, though incredulous of the fantastic extraordinary story, writes down the names on a piece of paper and shoves it into his shoe. He is later clubbed to death by an unknown person, his pockets turned out in an unsuccessful attempt to recover the note.
Mark later gets the list from his police surgeon friend and uncovers a startling connection between the two incidents. Convinced of a sinister motive behind the deaths, he and his plucky lady-love Ginger decide to get to the heart of the matter.
Being the only novel from Christie to be completely based on the occult and supernatural, the setting has an ominous and ghoulish undercurrent all throughout, and the fact that Mark and Ginger are no seasoned detectives helps ratchet up suspense levels to great heights. The events precipitating to the climax have been thrillingly explored and to say that the denouement was a fantastic surprise would be an understatement.
Mark and Ginger make for a thoroughly enjoyable pair and their romance has been developed in a way that fits well with the narrative. Detective-Inspector Lejeune, who gets the thunder-stealing moment akin to Poirot, compensates for the amateurishness of the leads and exhibits uncanny shrewdness that belies his quiet disposition. Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the only known face, is her usual confused self and provides the most valuable break to the mystery. Diabolically clever, The Pale Horse (alluding to the place of residence of the three witches, themselves an allusion of Shakespeare's Macbeth) is deception at best.
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