The Pale Horse (1961)

by Agatha Christie

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Ariadne Oliver (5)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
2,708	57	5,082	(3.59)	125
A priest's death leads to sinister goings-on in an old country pub... To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning? Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman's head? Or was it when the priest's assailant searched him so roughly he tore the clergyman's cassock? Or could it have been the priest's visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed? Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier? Wherever the beginning lies, Mark and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, may soon have cause to wish they'd never found it...… (more)

all members

▾Members

Recently added by

indigosky, jthopkinslibrary, Elena_Artesani, azurelion, ravstaa, dconnor7, private library, Pendrainllwyn, BuckeyeAmy21, Drylnn

▾Tags

▾LibraryThing Recommendations

▾Member recommendations

40
The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie (Porua)
Porua: The narrator of The Pale Horse, Mark Easterbrook, reminds me of the narrator of another Agatha Christie book. Jerry Barton from The Moving Finger. In both of these stories the urban hero goes to a small town and gets entangled in a spine chilling mystery. Another thing that these two books have in common is an unconventional old lady named Mrs. Dane Calthrop, one of the more unique creations of Christie.… (more)

▾Lists

Anthony Boucher's Best Crime Fiction of the Year (10)

Books Read in 2019 (248)

Crime and Mysteries to Read (225)

» 5 more

British Mystery (194)

Detective Stories (188)

Books About Murder (260)

Agatha Christie (24)

Animals in the Title (163)

▾Will you like it?

▾Conversations (About links)

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 125 mentions

▾Member reviews

English (50) Spanish (3) Portuguese (Portugal) (1) Danish (1) Swedish (1) Dutch (1) All languages (57)

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 50 (next | show all)

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

)

lulusantiago | Mar 11, 2023 |

8427202989

archivomorero | Jun 25, 2022 |

4/13/22

laplantelibrary | Apr 13, 2022 |

Serviceable Christie, rife with coincidence. (

)

misslevel | Feb 6, 2022 |

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.
(

)

OutOfTheBestBooks | Sep 24, 2021 |

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 50 (next | show all)

▾Published reviews

no reviews | add a review

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (72 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Christie, Agatha	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Adams, Tom	Cover artist	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Daw, Olivia	Illustrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Nuuttila, Antti	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Series

Ariadne Oliver (5)

Belongs to Publisher Series

Accolade (90)

Collins Crime Club

Delfinserien (510)

I grandi gialli di Agatha Christie [Hachette]

LR, 1968

Le Masque (774)

— 8 more

Gli Oscar [Mondadori] (1634)

Gli Oscar Mondadori - Gialli (107)

Gli Oscar Mondadori - Moderni

Gli Oscar Mondadori - Narrativa (1472)

SaPo (61)

Scherz Krimi (578)

St. Martin's Minotaur Mysteries

Vampiro (362)

Is contained in

By the Pricking of My Thumbs [and] The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe [and] The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

Poirot: The Complete Ariadne Oliver: Vol 2: Third Girl, Halloween Party, Elephants Can Remember, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

The Pale Horse | The Well-Dressed Skeleton | The Lady Finger by Detective Book Club

" Villa "Belyĭ kon' ". " Chaepitie v KHanteberi". "N" ili "M". "Ybit' legko". by Agata Kristi

La Señora Mc Ginty Ha Muerto; El Misterio De Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

(show 7 more)

Agatha Christie Crime Collection: The Pale Horse / The Big Four / The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

1950s Omnibus: They Came to Baghdad, Destination Unknown, Ordeal by Innocence, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

Peril At End House [and] The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

Evil Under the Sun / The Pale Horse / Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie

The Pale Horse [and] Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie

The Pale Horse [and] The Clocks by Agatha Christie

El misterioso caso de Styles ; Los cuatro grandes ; El templete de Nasse House ; El misterio de Pale Horse ; El misterio de Listerdale by Agatha Christie

Has the adaptation

The Pale Horse [film] by Charles Beeson

The Pale Horse (BBC Radio Collection) by Agatha Christie

▾Awards and Honors

Distinctions

Anthony Boucher's Best Crime Fiction of the Year (1962)

view history

▾Common Knowledge

You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.

For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.

Canonical title

The Pale Horse

Original title

The Pale Horse

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1961-11-06

People/Characters

Important places

Much Deeping, England, UK

London, England, UK

Bournemouth, Dorset, England, UK

Important events

Related movies

The Pale Horse (2020 | IMDb)

Awards and honors

Anthony Boucher's Best Crime Fiction of the Year (1962)

Epigraph

Dedication

To
John and Helen Mildmay White
with many thanks for the opportunity
given me to see justice done

First words

There are two methods, it seems to me, of approaching this strange business of the Pale Horse.

Quotations

Your criminal is someone who wants to be important, but who will never be important, because he’ll always be less than a man.

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Grafton, Sue

Original language

English UK

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

The Pale Horse

▾Book descriptions

A priest's death leads to sinister goings-on in an old country pub... To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning? Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman's head? Or was it when the priest's assailant searched him so roughly he tore the clergyman's cassock? Or could it have been the priest's visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed? Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier? Wherever the beginning lies, Mark and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, may soon have cause to wish they'd never found it...

▾Library descriptions

No library descriptions found.

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

"WICKEDNESS ... SUCH WICKEDNESS ..."

The dying woman turned to Father Gorman with agony in her eyes, "Stopped ... It must be stopped ... You will ... "
The priest spoke with reassuring authority. "I will do what is necessary. You can trust me."
Father Gorman tucked the list of names she had given him into his shoe. It was a meaningless list: the names were of people who had nothing in common.
On his way home, Father Gorman was murdered. But the police found the list, and when Mark Easterbrook came to inquire into the circumstances of the people listed, he began to discover a connection between them, and an ominous pattern:

EVERY PERSON ON THAT LIST WAS EITHER ALREADY DEAD - OR, HE SUSPECTED, MARKED FOR MURDER!

Haiku summary

Visit the Pale Horse
Arrange for someone to die
Murder as business
(passion4reading)