Review by Minanga J, Year 13, published in the Caxton Times
The Pale Horse is a mystery novel by the famous author and “Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie. The story revolves around a series of murders committed by poisoning the victims with a lethal chemical called thallium. At the time of The Pale Horse‘s publication in 1961, thallium poisoning was not widely known. Also known as the “poisoner’s poison” due to its high toxicity, thallium is a metal that is modestly abundant in the Earth’s crust. However, it is so thinly distributed that the likelihood of anyone being accidentally harmed by it is incredibly small, so even doctors and medical staff were not fully aware of its effects.