Love The Pale Horse? Readers share 29 books like The Pale Horse...

I love this book for many reasons—its rural Southern setting, its lawyer/judge protagonist Deborah Knott, its twisty mystery. But I was particularly intrigued when author Margaret Maron told me that the spark for the book was a real unsolved murder near her North Carolina home. I wrote about the real case when it was finally solved in Triangle True Crime, but Margaret’s version of what might have happened is so much more interesting.

Nancy Pickard is one of my favorite authors, starting with her Jenny Cain series. The Whole Truth, featuring true-crime writer Marie Lightfoot, was a shift for her. The novel simultaneously follows Marie as she researches the case of a dangerous serial killer and as she writes about it, which gives an interesting insight into the difficulties of living in a world where crime is real.

This book has the winning combination of everything I love!

First, a spooky setting—in this case, the salt marshes on the Norfolk coast. They have a dismal beauty, but they are full of dangers like sudden tides and quicksand-like marsh mud. Second, a strong female protagonist. Ruth Galloway is a delight. A noted archaeologist who teaches at Norfolk University, Ruth is independent, intelligent, and curious. Third: Romance. Ruth forges a connection with DI Harry Nelson, who calls upon her services to identify the age of some bones. Fourth: Humor. This book, though often scary in a deliciously Gothic, historical way,  is also hilarious.

I like a book that isn’t relentlessly grim! But I also love a good mystery, and this one meets that criterion. It is the first in a series, and I have read them ALL.

I first met Rumpole, the Old Bailey Hack, as he called himself, on the PBS Masterpiece series. John Mortimer’s books about the curmudgeonly old barrister are even more delightful. As a former trial attorney, I love how the collections of short stories in his books give me a peek inside the British legal system—and how they present plenty of puzzles to solve, filled with irascible good wit. 

I was impressed by how the American-style gumshoe was brought to Berlin before and during Nazi rule. I love noir, and this is a great example. I was taken with how Kerr’s irony speaks through his Bernie Gunther and gives a nuanced message about the choices we make when evil is around us.

Gunther has a moral compass in a regime that lacks one, and he struggles to do his duty as a cop under a regime that is not only corrupt but a low point in human morality. I watched as Nazi leaders appeared as flawed and little, cynical and also driven by a base ideology. It gave texture and believability.

I am a massive fan of David Foster Wallace, but I was skeptical when I first heard that his posthumous novel was set in something as banal as the Internal Revenue Service. But Wallace eased my concerns. Not only is the book engaging, but I was also surprised to find this work to be a novel of shadows.

The book is filled with thick descriptions of shadows moving eerily across rooms, halls, and buildings and perhaps even more disturbing, strange situations where brilliant lights cast no shadow. Reading the book, I wondered (or perhaps feared) that an excessive interest in shadows is a sign of the onset of mental collapse.

Published in 1934, this is Stead’s first novel, and its Modernistic portrayal of a loosely connected group of young men and women existing and interacting in a poverty-wracked but rapidly changing between-the-Wars Sydney caused a literary storm at the time. The City, caught between its Colonial heritage and its future as a modern Twentieth Century metropolis is the real star of the novel even as its seven bewildered, beleaguered characters roam its bay and suburbs, its libraries, university, and pubs, attempting to negotiate their changing city and their place in it. I couldn’t write a novel about Sydney without visiting Christina Stead’s Sydney first.

You know how, when you read a book that’s so clever, funny, and perfectly written you want to actually get to know the author? That’s what happened to me when I read this book. Even though I didn’t know him, I knew he’d be the kind of person that you hoped to run into at the bar—a generous man with a great sense of humor, a bright outlook, and plenty of great stories.  

We did eventually come to be friends in real life, too. It turned out that we’re practically neighbors and both enjoy the occasional glass of gin. True story.

I think Joe Moran is one of the most interesting authors writing about modern life. He is interested in the ordinary and the mundane, those things you might (probably would) miss if they weren’t drawn to your attention. This beautifully written book has sixteen chapters which begin with breakfast (do you know where the idea of a ‘full English’ came from?), and takes us on a journey that includes the morning commute, the changing status of the working lunch (increasingly now experienced as ‘dining al desko’) our evening eating and viewing habits, all the way through to turning in at the end of the day (when did we switch to duvets?). An easy read which in its own way is also quite profound.

To be fair, there is a love story featured in this novel, but it’s not at the heart of this tale. This is a historical piece full of captivating characterisation. Robin is a burly man who’s clumsy and unpopular in the small coastal town he lives in. But a horrendous storm is brewing, and Robin takes it upon himself to gather the townsfolk and get them to shelter at The Moth and Moon, the local pub. The world building is excellent. All characters are well realised. Most are eccentric. None are forgettable. And these elements make this tale truly charming.