The Pale Horse is a 1961 mystery novel by Agatha Christie.
It features neither of her two most famous detectives, Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. Instead, the hero is wealthy young bachelor Mark Easterbrook. Mark has a chat with a police friend of his, who tells him about a strange case. It seems that one Father Gorman came to the bedside of an older lady, Mrs. Davis, who was dying. Father Gorman left Mrs. Davis's side, only to be bashed in the head and murdered minutes later in the street. Father Gorman had on his person a mysterious lists of names. The police are puzzled, but Mark recognizes two of the names as being acquaintances of his who have died recently.
Mark connects this with an offhand comment by his airheaded lady friend Poppy, who claims to have heard about some mysterious organization called "the Pale Horse" that is in the business of murdering people. Soon after, Mark has occasion to visit the country village of Much Deeping. He's startled to find out that the village has an old inn called The Pale Horse. It's now a private residence inhabited by a creepy woman, Thyrza Gray, who claims to have the ability to kill people using psychic powers. Mark and his friend, high-spirited socialite Ginger Corrigan, resolve to find out just what The Pale Horse is up to.
A 2 part BBC adaptation aired in 2020, starring Rufus Sewell, Georgina Campbell, Bertie Carvel, Sean Pertwee and Kaya Scodelario. There had been two prior ITV adaptations, one of which consisted of an episode of Marple.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Villainy: In the BBC adaptation, Mark Easterbrook lies to the police: he was with Thomasina the night she died, cheating on his second wife. In fact, he murdered his first wife by electrocuting her in the bathtub. The names on the Davis list are suspected killers, not victims, and Mark's own name ends up on the list with a question mark because his first wife visited the Pale Horse the day she died and the witches mention his name to Davis. Mark is not caught, but he does not escape fate: after he learns the truth from Osborne and kills him, it seems Mark dies himself in a surreal, hellish ending.
- Adjective Animal Alehouse: "The Pale Horse", that being an old inn, now a private residence inhabited by creepy possible murderer Thyrza Gray and her two creepy companions.
- Author Avatar: Another appearance of Ariadne Oliver, the old lady mystery writer who is clearly Agatha Christie herself. Ariadne complains about her difficulty in working out story ideas and plotting interesting murders. At the end, she has completed her 55th detective novel, The White Cockatoo (The Pale Horse was Christie's 52nd novel).
- Canon Welding: Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot never appeared in a book together. However, this novel establishes that they share a common universe, by including as minor characters Ariadne Oliver (who appeared with Poirot several times), Col. Despard and Rhoda from Poirot novel Cards on the Table, and vicar's wife Mrs. Dane Calthorp, from Miss Marple novel The Moving Finger.
- Cat Fight: Mark is amused to see Thomasina Tuckerton get into a hair-pulling cat fight with another woman in a cafe, and then is startled when the other woman pulls out a huge chunk of Thomasina's hair. That proves to be very plot relevant, as it's a clue that the supposed curses are actually thallium poisoning.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Osborne, the chemist who tells the police that he saw the murderer following Father Gorman. Osborne turns out to be the killer.
- Complete-the-Quote Title: "The Pale Horse" is the name of an old inn that is central to the plot. But, also, it is an allusion to the Book of Revelation: "I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death." Mrs. Calthorp quotes that verse at the end of the book when they find at the inn a painting of a skeleton on horseback.
- Continuity Nod: Ariadne Oliver, invited to a church fete, recoils in horror. She tells about how she arranged a "Murder Hunt" game at a country fete only for a real corpse to turn up. That's Christie novel Dead Man's Folly.
- Contrived Coincidence
- Mark happens to be acquainted with two of the victims of The Pale Horse. He saw Thomasina Tuckerton getting into a Cat Fight in a cafe, and another name on the list, Hesketh-Dubois, matches that of his godmother. Both died recently.
- Poppy the blabbermouth says something about a mysterious group called "the Pale Horse", which seems to be in the business of murdering people. Soon after he goes on a trip to a country village, which just happens to have an old inn called The Pale Horse.
- One of the names on the death list is "Corrigan". Mark just happens to know two Corrigans, Dr. Corrigan of the police who first tells him about the case, and of course his friend Ginger Corrigan.
- Dispense with the Pleasantries: Inverted in The Pale Horse where Mr. Bradley is shocked at Mark Easterbrook dispensing with the pleasantries. (Mark sits down in Bradley's office and says, without preamble, "How much?")
- Dramatic Drop: Mark, determined to worm the truth out of Poppy, goes back to the flower shop where she works. He says "The other evening you mentioned something called the Pale Horse."With a violent start, Poppy dropped the roses and the asparagus fern on the floor.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Mystery writer Ariadne Oliver suddenly realizes that all the deaths have one thing in common: all the victims were losing their hair when they died. She knows this is a vital clue but she has no medical training, so she doesn't know what it means. She calls Mark to tell him what she has realized, and he has his own eureka moment, realizing that all the deaths were due to thallium poisoning.
- Fiery Redhead: Katherine "suitably called Ginger" Corrigan, a feisty, high-spirited redhead who insists that she and Mark simply must ferret out the truth about The Pale Horse."She's a redhead, didn't you say?"
"Yes," I said, startled.
"You can never argue with a redhead," said Lejeune. "Don't I know it!" - Full-Name Basis: Mrs. Dane Calthrop, the vicar's wife, is only ever referred to as "Mrs. Dane Calthrop." Never "Mrs. Calthrop" or "Maud" (that being her name).
- Have a Gay Old Time: One of several Christie novels where the word "pussy" is used to mean "old lady".
- He Knows Too Much: Mrs. Davis was killed, it happens, because she saw Osborne's face and started to piece together what was going on.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: "The Pale Horse" is a reference to one of them, namely Death.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Col. Despard's appearance here gives away he wasn't the culprit in Cards on the Table, as well as by association The Reveal towards the end of that book that the "murder" he had committed was actually a tragic accident.
- Literary Allusion Title: To the Book of Revelation, and specifically verse 6:8 about Death riding a pale horse.
- Married in the Future: Col. Despard and Rhoda, who were falling in love in Christie novel Cards on the Table, pop up in this one as Happily Married.
- Murder, Inc.: The Pale Horse turns out to be a murder-for-hire organization, specifically a highly compartmentalized one in which various members of the group perform tasks without knowing who else is involved or what they're doing.
- Narrator: Most but not all of the book is told by Mark in first-person singular.
- Ominous Hair Loss: All of the victims of the "witches" had hair loss as one of their symptoms. Mark Easterbrook deduces that this implies that they all died from thallium poisoning.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Three self-proclaimed witches perform arcane rituals that appear to cause their targets to sicken and die. They are part of a murder for hire ring, but their victims die from thallium poisoning.
- Spooky Séance: The three women in The Pale Horse stage one hell of a spooky seance for Mark, with Sybil the medium summoning a ghost, Thyrza bringing out an upside-down crucifix, and Bella sacrificing a rooster. It's all nonsense, although only Thyrza knows this.
- Villain Ball: Osborne the pharmacist is only caught because of a truly epic blunder. For no other reason than to amuse himself, he approaches the police and claims to have seen the man who killed Father Gorman, when of course it's Osborne himself who did it. That draws the police's attention directly to him, especially when the man Osborne claims he saw, Mr. Venables, turns out to be a paraplegic.
