So to avoid giving away whodunnit but to offer you lots of clues, this article is all about Young, one of Britain’s most prolific poisoners, and some of the uncomfortably similar circumstances of his real-life murderous career and Christie’s fiction. I don’t want to give away too much about The Pale Horse and spoil your enjoyment of the drama but I do want to discuss just how brilliantly Christie used her scientific knowledge to construct the plot. It is doubtful that Christie, scientifically accurate though she was, could have taught him anything anyway, as Young had made his own extensive and detailed studies of all things toxic. The novel was published in 1961, the year before Young began his poisoning activities, but at his trial in 1971 he denied having read it. There are certainly some uncomfortable parallels between The Pale Horse and the crimes committed by Graham Young. But the same novel has also been accused of inspiring a murderer.Ĭhristie often used real life cases of murder as sources for her plots but on this occasion it was allegedly the other way round. It seems reading Christie could save your life.
It is sufficiently detailed that on two occasions readers recognised symptoms in people who were being poisoned and were able to intervene. You can listen online to free English audiobook “The Pale Horse” by Agatha Christie on our website.The novel, as would be expected of Christie, is packed with poisonous information and killer clues. When he learns that Venables suffered from polio and is incapable of standing due to atrophy of the legs, Osborne is nonetheless certain of his identification and begins to suggest ways that Venables could have faked his own disability. Later, he contacts the police to say that he has seen this same man in a wheelchair: it is Venables. In the police investigation, there is a witness, Zachariah Osborne, who describes a man seen following Father Gorman shortly before the murder. In retrospect, it seems to Mark that she has been outlining to him a service that she would be willing to provide.
He also visits the Pale Horse, where Thyrza discusses with Mark the ability to kill at a distance, which she claims to have developed.
Visiting houses in the area, he meets a wheelchair-using man, Mr Venables, who has no apparent explanation for his substantial wealth. When Mark goes to Much Deeping with the famous mystery writer, Ariadne Oliver, to a village fete organised by his cousin, he learns of a house converted from an old inn called the Pale Horse, now inhabited by three modern "witches" led by Thyrza Grey. The Pale Horse is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1961 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year.
0 kommentar(er)
