The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie features a new narrator, Mark Easterbrook, a historian working on the Moguls. Mark sees a fight between two girls and later learns that one of the girls has died. This leads to the death of a priest, Father Gorman, and a list of many individuals. The people on the list have all died supposedly of natural causes, but Mark and a police surgeon, Jim Corrigan believe that foul play hides among all these deaths. The Pale Horse, an old bar/inn hovers in the background as a source of the deaths. The poison, thallium, jumps into the equation, as this poison causes loss of hair. Also, three older woman, believed to be witches, create seances and all manner of bewitching gems. Mark, Jim, and Marks’ new friend Ginger, rush to discover the culprit of the poison and why. A delightful story that omits Marple and Poirot. ( )

Crítica | O Cavalo Amarelo, de Agatha Christie
https://www.planocritico.com/critica-o-cavalo-amarelo-de-agatha-christie/ ( )

Serviceable Christie, rife with coincidence. ( )

I'm incredibly creeped out at the moment. I'm not sure if it's something I caught from the main character of the novel or if the conjuring in the middle was just too much, but I'm intensely glad that it's sunny right now. I should probably add that I am not one who gets scared for fun. But, after a few lower-rated Christies, this was one of her better works and I am suitably terrified and shocked that I following the red herrings.

It all begins when Mark, bored as most of her POV main characters are, gets tangled up in the murder of a kindly parish priest. He doesn't think much of it until, aided and abetted by the self-caricature she creates in Ariadne Oliver---who really wasn't featured as much as I would have wished, he runs into a historic tavern run by three local "witches" that claim they can eliminate surplus people through spectacular means.

I'm still shuddering at it all... I think that may have been one of the "closest calls" I've ever read. As the pages left to be read on the left started getting fewer and fewer I was starting to get a bit panicky and wonder how I would sleep tonight if the mystery wasn't solved; but Agatha came through. Highly appropriate in view of the upcoming Halloween weekend.
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A highly enjoyable Christie, marred only somewhat by the (to me, at least) unsatisfying/implausible reveal of the villain.