Mark Easterbrook

Mark Easterbrook is the main protagonist of Agatha Christie's 1961 novel The Pale House.
== Biography ==
Mark is a scientist. One day, he gets bored with his research and decides to do something else. One day he witnesses a fight between young girls. One of them pulls out another girl's hair, and the other girl is not hurt. Later, Mark learns about the death of the girl whose hair was pulled out. Also, the local police show Mark a list of people who allegedly died of natural causes (including the girl Mark saw fighting with another girl). The police received this list in the shoe of a priest who was recently killed. The priest himself received this list during the confession of a woman who allegedly died of natural causes. This list also includes the name of Mark's godmother. But Mark cannot tell the police anything about this, since he knows little. Later, he decides to figure out what is happening himself. First, he visits the Pale Horse Inn, where local witches perform some mysterious rituals. He decides to find out what these rituals are. To do this, he enlists his friend Ginger Corrigan. She decides to pass herself off as Mark's wife (everyone knows that Mark once had a wife, but she died in a car accident, which no one knows about). Mark himself at this time goes to a local lawyer and makes a bet with him. If his wife (actually Ginger) dies within a certain time, Mark will pay the lawyer a certain amount of money. Then he goes to the witches and they perform the ritual. Then the lawyer advises Mark to hide somewhere. He leaves for the village. There he meets local pharmacist Zachariah Osborne, who claims to have seen who killed the priest. But that person could not do this because he was in a wheelchair. There is an official conclusion from doctors. But Osborne does not believe this and is looking for possible reasons for how doctors could have been deceived. Also, thallium was found in that wheelchair user, which, as it turned out, was used to poison the people on that list. It was also thallium that poisoned the woman to whom the murdered priest went, and Ginger, who had fallen ill by that time. However, the police prove that Osborne himself was the criminal. He poisoned people for money (in particular, if someone needed to poison a rich relative or blackmailer). Thallium is difficult to detect in the body. Then one woman guessed everything, and Osborne poisoned her. But she managed to tell the priest what she knew, and Osborne killed him too. Osborne screwed up on one thing. The night the priest was killed was dark and foggy, and Osborne could not see the killer in as much detail as he claimed. However, he continued to insist on what he saw. In addition, he so badly wanted to participate in the trial as a witness that he was ready to find an explanation why the wheelchair user was guilty of killing the priest (and the wheelchair user himself, of course, did not kill the priest). All that remained was to catch Osborne red-handed. Mark and Ginger's plan helped the police do this. Osborne is subsequently arrested and Ginger recovers. Mark decides to start a relationship with her.
== Personality ==
Mark is a fairly smart and successful scientist. He can also be called brave, as he is not afraid to fight dangerous criminals. He is also very kind, as he warns police officer Corrigan that he may be in danger (as Corrigan's last name is on the list of last names found on the murdered priest). It is also thanks to his initiative and clues as to how exactly the people on that list could have died that the police understand the essence of the scheme by which Osborne committed his crimes.
== Trivia ==
* In the novel about Mark Easterbrook, the writer Ariadne Oliver appears. This is exactly the same Ariadne Oliver who helped Hercle Poirot. Jane Marple's friends also appear here, meaning that Mark Easterbrook, Poirot and Miss Marple exist in the same universe.
Category:Book Heroes
Category:Doctors and Scientists
Category:Famous
Category:Truth-Seekers
Category:Thrill-Seekers
Category:Male
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Category:Adventurers
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Category:Mature
Category:Narrators
Category:Successful