I randomly chose this one from the Christie books on my kindle during the weather related blackout. I didn't know what to expect as I didn't easily have access to the synopsis (and I believe my phone was in my car charging when I first started this one), so I went into it rather blind.

I enjoyed this quite a bit, though at times I was wondering just where Christie was going story-wise. The plot and the resolution were rather implausible, but at the same time it was also great fun and a cracking good mystery.

I only wish there had been more Ariadne Oliver in it.

Remember Macbeth. “After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.”

This is getting spooky, but the last 4 Christie books (Sparkling Cyanide, By The Pricking of My Thumbs, Third Girl, and The Pale Horse) I picked up ALL had references to Macbeth in them!

ALL OF THEM!!!

I don’t know what I had expected, but I suffered a complete reversal of feeling. There was nothing sinister here; merely a completely ordinary young to middle-aged woman. Not a very interesting woman, and not, I thought, a particularly nice woman. The lips, in spite of a generous application of lipstick, were thin and bad-tempered. The chin receded a little. The eyes were pale blue and gave the impression that she was appraising the price of everything. She was the sort of woman who undertipped porters and cloakroom attendants. There are a lot of women of her type to be met in the world, though mainly less expensively dressed, and not so well made-up.

Oh, Mark, you judgmental little dumbass.

Can we have Ariadne back please?

Just picking up from a conversation earlier today about Christie having a tendency to portray psychologists as horrible human beings:

‘Poisons! That’s vieux jeu. Childish stuff. There are new horizons.’

‘Such as?’

‘The mind. Knowledge of what the mind is—what it can do—what it can be made to do.’

‘Please go on. This is most interesting.’

‘The principle is well known. Medicine-men have used it in primitive communities for centuries. You don’t need to kill your victim. All you need do is—tell him to die.’

‘Suggestion? But it won’t work unless the victim believes in it.’

‘It doesn’t work on Europeans, you mean,’ she corrected me. ‘It does sometimes. But that’s not the point. We’ve gone further ahead than the witch-doctor has ever gone. The psychologists have shown the way. The desire for death! It’s there—in everyone. Work on that! Work on the death wish.’

Muahahahaha! The psychologists have shown the way! 

So, yet again, psychology as a slight step up from voodoo and witchcraft. 

I also kinda like how the meetings with the ladies at The Pale Horse are set off against Mark's visits with Mrs Dane Calthrop, the voice of reason at the vicarage.