The Pale Horse

By Agatha Christie

Book Overview

Soon to be a Prime original limited series In the classic mystery by Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie, an elderly priest is murdered, quite possibly doomed by a woman's deathbed confession and by the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061003778
• ISBN13: 9780061003776
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.8" x 4.3"

Customer Reviews

Classic Agatha Christie with a distinctly modern flavour!

Father Gorman attends to one of his parishioners who, with her dying breath, asks for forgiveness and gives him a list of names with a wish that the evil be "Stopped ... it must be stopped ... You will see?" When Father Gorman was found murdered later that night, the police suspect that the murderer failed to find the crumpled list of names stuffed in Gorman's shoe and that the list was likely the reason he had been murdered. This list of names and a series of serendipitous events, happenstance conversations and fortuitous meetings put Mark Easterbrook, Dame Agatha Christie's ever-present amateur sleuth, onto the trail of a gang of ruthless murders for hire. But Easterbrook is terrified to discover that the murders seem to be committed by a coven of three odd witches dispatching their victims for a fee with a malevolent brew of witchcraft, psychic arts, black magic and the mere power of suggestion. "The Pale Horse" retains many of the characteristics of Agatha Christie's earliest cozy mysteries - country fêtes and bazaars, afternoon tea, parish vicars and their long-suffering wives and the obligatory parlour room confrontation with the suspects. Agatha Christie even allows herself a cameo appearance in the novel in the person of twittering author Ariadne Oliver. But "The Pale Horse" also has a much more modern flavour as an aging Dame Christie brings her craft into London of the early sixties - Soho, Chelsea coffee bars, discussions of avant garde productions of Shakespearean plays in ways the bard would never have imagined, a more graphic approach to violence and brutality and a somewhat grudging if critical acceptance of the popular culture of London's younger people. But the ending, whether you think of it as vintage mystery or new age police procedural, is classic Agatha Christie - a beautiful blind-side twist that no reader will see coming until it's right on top of you! Highly recommended and thoroughly entertaining! Paul Weiss

A departure from the usual for Dame Agatha

This 1961 novel is not a part of any of Christie's more famous series (Poirot, Miss Marple or Tommy and Tuppence) but does include some "old friends" from other books: the Dane Calthrops (THE MOVING FINGER), Rhoda and Major Despard (THE CARD ON THE TABLE) and Ariadne Oliver, the famous mystery writer who has appeared in several Poirot stories. The PALE HORSE is one of the novels that is as much romance and mystery.The story is told by Mark Easterbrook, a writer who had taken up residence in the Chelsea district of London while working on his latest book on Mogul culture. He stopped into a coffee shop for a quick meal and witnessed an argument between two young women that ended with one pulling out a handful of hair from the other. The unfortunate woman's unusual name - Thomasina Tuckerton - stuck with Easterbrook. He was surprised when he saw it a week later, in the obituaries.Easterbrook went on about his life, meeting with his friend, Ariadne Oliver, traveling to the country to visit his cousin, and going out with his long-time girlfriend Hermia Redcliffe. Meanwhile the police begin to investigate the murder of a priest who was killed on his way home from hearing a last confession. They found a list of names stuffed into the priest's shoe, including the name of the police inspector. The two threads of the story meet and continue to weave throughout London, out to the country, on to Birmingham and returning to London. On the way the path leads to witchcraft, deathrays, and murder for hire.The mystery here appears to be more a how-it-was-done than a who- done-it although Christie has once again lead us down the garden path to a surprise finish.

Christie Explores the Underworld

The Pale Horse is the name of an organization whose business is murder, akin to the Mafia or other nefarious gangster-style groups. In the novel, a young historian-writer named Mark Easterbrook hears about the organization and attempts to uncover the instigators.The story unfolds in bits and pieces: the murder of a parish priest, a list of names of people already dead or marked for death, a pub converted into a home for three unusual women, and a local fete to raise money to restore the church tower all figure prominently in the story.We are also reintroduced to some characters from previous works: Mrs. Ariadne Oliver makes an appearance, this time without Poirot; Rhoda and Major Despard from "Cards on the Table" provide the entry for Mark Easterbrook as he is Rhoda's cousin; and Rev. and Mrs. Dane Calthrop from "The Moving Finger" also appear.The title for this novel is said to have been taken from Revelations 6:8 "And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."