There’s no Ariadne Oliver character to tie this in with Christie’s other stories, and the plot has a clear sense of what makes an unflappable man like Easterbrook tick, often frustratingly so due to how well Sewell plays the character so despicably and yet amicably when needed. Photographer: Jonny Birch / © Mammoth Screen 2019Ĭompared to the novel, Phelps’s take on the narrative is a leaner and fittingly paler beast that hurries on right to its stunning conclusion. Bewildered by the stink of death all over him and now his world of friends and acquaintances, Easterbrook sets out on a personal investigation to discover what’s really happening, all while being hounded by the unrelenting Inspector Lejeune ( Sean Pertwee). The woman he’s been cheating with dies mysteriously and suddenly in her sleep and the seemingly unrelated death of a shopkeeper turns up a list in her possession with his name on it. It’s not long before a string of coincidental deaths and unexplainable occurrences begin to take shape all around Easterbrook.

Though she haunts Mark at seemingly every moment he’s not awake, the aging socialite has already taken in a new young wife, Hermia ( Kaya Scodelario), who appears to have a more violent temperament hidden beneath her cold, pristine exterior. Set in 1960s London, The Pale Horse follows the stoic Mark Easterbrook ( Rufus Sewell), a rich antique dealer whose wife Delphine ( Georgina Campbell) tragically died a year prior. To adapt the story’s complex web of intriguingly dark characters, Sarah Phelps ( EastEnders) innovates the material through clever addition and subtraction, while maintaining the harrowing spirit of Christie’s pen. Composed of just two hour-long episodes, The Pale Horse is a loose adaptation of the 1961 detective novel by Agatha Christie, one of her final works. The dreary insistence of death permeates every fiber of The Pale Horse, a new mystery miniseries from BBC arriving on Amazon Prime Video this Friday the 13th, if you dare. Amazon’s adaptation of the Agatha Christie mystery keeps the author’s innate spirit for intrigue.

The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie