Review: The Pale Horse, by Agatha Christie

In many murder mysteries, the question of ‘who did it’ is less important than ‘how they did it’ – and that is certainly the case with this book. I came to read it because I knew how it was done; I had read about that while doing research for my own next book. But I had no idea who did it. Now I know.

This is not one of Christie’s best books. Written when she was 70 years old, and features as its central character a forgettable figure, vaguely described as a historian of sorts, who stumbles through the story, not understanding things that the average reader would spot fairly quickly. He is no Hercule Poirot, who sees everything and understands everything.

But in books like this one, the mystery is everything, and two mysteries here — who did it, and how — are interesting enough.