Overture to Death - SPOILER Thread

[C.M.]

I did get it halfway through as well: I read it to the end because it was the 'how' I hadn't quite pieced together. I thought the clues were really well thought out and the detection was clever, but guessing it meant I was more impatient to get to the end, and less relaxed about going on the ride...

[Judy]

C. M. wrote: "Straw coloured' is a common way to refer to someone with pale blonde/sandy blonde hair in this sort of era I think, I've come across it before: ..."

Thanks, C.M. - I agree "straw-coloured hair" is common, but I still think describing someone as a "straw-coloured woman" is very unusual and I suspect that was probably the case in this era too - I just looked at this in Google/Google Books and found only a handful of examples.

However, one of the quotes which showed up was from another book by Ngaio Marsh, where she refers to another character as a "pale, straw-coloured woman", so it definitely seems to be a description she used for blonde/pale women!

Looking back at the bit where Selia is introduced, she is described as having hair in "pale waves" and even compared to a ferret - I had forgotten this when the "straw-coloured" phrase turned up later in the book! Can't say I've ever considered ferrets to be particularly gorgeous...

[Louise]

the odd thing about Nagaio Marsh's savage portrayal of the two spinsters is that she was herself a spinster in her forties at the time of writing, you would have thought she would be less hostile towards the idea of spinsterhood.

[Rosina]

Surely Mrs Ross stops being an average Anglo-Saxon type when she is revealed to be really Rosen? Though why she is a Rosen isn't stated (by marriage? a recent immigrant?) it seems clear that there is a subtext of 'foreign' nastiness.

[Judy]

Rosina wrote: "Surely Mrs Ross stops being an average Anglo-Saxon type when she is revealed to be really Rosen? ... it seems clear that there ..."

Yes, I thought that too - definitely a "foreign" subtext there, as you say, Rosina. Even if "straw-coloured" just means pale.

[C.M.]

Yes: “she’s not only stealing your man, she’s also foreign so what do you expect really”... that sort of behaviour is a bit too passionate for A-Sx women...