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    Pale Horse Coming
    Pale Horse Coming
    Pale Horse Coming
    Audiobook16 hours

    Pale Horse Coming

    Written by Stephen Hunter

    Narrated by Peter Berkrot and Eric G. Dove

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    About this audiobook

    It’s 1951. The Thebes State Penal Farm in Mississippi is up a dark river, surrounded by swamps and impenetrable piney woods. It’s the Old South at its most brutal—a place of violence, racial terror, and even more horrific rumors. Of the few who make the journey, black or white, even fewer return.

    But in that year, two men will come to Thebes. The first is Sam Vincent, the former prosecuting attorney of Polk County, Arkansas who, with great misgivings, accepts a job to investigate a disappearance. Before he leaves on this dangerous trip, he confesses his fears to his former investigator Earl Swagger, now a sergeant of the Arkansas State Police. Earl pledges that if Sam is not back by a certain time, he will come looking for him.

    What they encounter there is something beyond their wildest imagining of evil. The dying black town is ruled by white deputies on horseback who are more like an occupying army and the only escape is over the wild currents of the dark river that drowns as many people as it liberates. But nothing in town compares to the prison. Run by an aging madman with insane theories of racial purity, it is administered by a brutal sergeant known as Bigboy. The convicts call him The Whip Man—he can take a man’s soul with his nine feet of braided catgut.

    Both Sam and Earl will be challenged to the limits of their strength by this place and will struggle not only for their own survival, but with the question: What does a man do when confronted with evil?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 10, 2012
    ISBN9781455815715
    Author

    Stephen Hunter

    Stephen Hunter has written over twenty novels. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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    Reviews for Pale Horse Coming

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    151 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The first book I read by Stephen Hunter was extremly good, a lot of suspense, I could not put it down. So I had equally high expectations for this one. It is an almost classic tale of vengeance. Our hero Earl Swagger goes down south to a penal farm, to find a friend that has disappeared while investigating the whereabouts of a client. I don’t want to give too much away of the storyline…. He barely gets away, with his life and sanity intact…just…. And swears to come back to give them hell. He gatheres some tough and trigger happy gunmen around him and they go back…. So far so good. I really liked the first half of the book, up to the point when he escapes from the penal farm. But then it gets pretty weird. The gun fighters are just too over the top and I think he tries too hard to make them all these unusual characters. But what puts me off the most is probably the style the book is written in. It is set in the 1950’s and written like that. Fair enough, he tries to create the correct athmosphere. I just don’t like it, it keeps me dropping out of the story because it feels so unrealisitc to me. So basically a good book, but just a bit too weird to be really great.
    • 5/5
      Great book, reminded me of a modern era magnificent 7, should be made into a movie. Loved the characters and how Audie Murphy was added to this all.
    • 4/5
      I liked it. The setup wasn't really credible at all, but the story drew me in anyway, entertaining throughout.
    • 4/5
      Great story with Earl Swagger going against all odds for survival. Once it gets rolling, you won't want to put it down.
    • 4/5
      It's 1951, and the last place a man wishes to visit is Thebes State Penal Farm (colored) in Mississippi. Up a dark river, surrounded by swamps and impenetrable piney woods, it's the Old South at its most brutal. but in that year, two men will come to Thebes, first is Sam Vincent, the former prosecuting attorney of Polk County, Arkansas. Second is earl Swagger, a Marine hero on Iwo Jima and now a sergeant of the Arkansas State Police.
    • 3/5
      Stephen Hunter's "Pale Horse Coming" starts out with a bang, and the author builds suspense as Earl Swagger saves his buddy but endures torture like no man should. But the end of the book is strangely anti-climatic, lacking suspense. Swagger gains his revenge too easily.I love Hunter's books, especially "Point of Impact." But this one petered out at the end.
    • 5/5
      I have to say that this book was a stunner for me. Full of violence anddelicious retribution, tightly written and peopled with characters that cometo life before your eyes. This would make a hell of a movie, and I couldn'thelp but cast it in my head as I went along. This isn't the sortof book I ordinarily pick up to read, but I'm very glad I did, and I'm goingto be looking for some more books by Mr. Hunter, including one called "HotSprings," in which he introduces the amazing character of Earl Swagger.