The Pale Horse
- 256
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
- Series 2020 +1
- On screen
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Our view
“The Pale Horse” is one of Agatha Christie’s darker puzzles, a murder mystery that flirts with witchcraft and hides its answer to the end. The title points to the rider named Death in Revelation, and an eerie mood runs through the whole novel. Some readers place the book below her most famous cases, but anyone drawn to a whodunit with a supernatural chill will find it rewarding.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Pale Horse is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1961, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at fifteen shillings and the US edition at $3.75. The novel features her novelist detective Ariadne Oliver as a minor character, and reflects in tone the supernatural novels of Dennis Wheatley who was then at the height of his popularity. The Pale Horse is mentioned in Revelation 6:8, where it is ridden by Death.
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen 2 times — from 1997 to 2020.
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.1 across 82 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 36% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Crime & mystery average of 7.6. That is how 7.5 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.6 | 5 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 7.1 | 77 | 94% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Pale Horse?
It has 256 pages — shorter than 91% of the ranked books in Crime & mystery.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Crime & mystery — with scores between 7.4 and 7.5, closest to this book.
