History Literature / LethalWhite

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Jasper Chiswell, an aristocratic Conservative politician with a unique and often mocked hairstyle, bears a more than passing resemblance to UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson.
%%** He is clearly a caricature of Alan Clark.

** He is clearly a caricature of Alan Clark.

* PeekABangs: Strike's sensual new girlfriend Lorelei is described as wearing her hair like TropeMaker Creator/VeronicaLake.

* AffairHair: It's not a hair, it's an earring, found by Robin on her bedroom floor after being shaken from the sheets of her marital bed. This is how she finds out that her husband Matthew is cheating on her with his old lover Sarah Shadlock.

** About the valuing of a painting:
--> '''Drummond''': — but it was worth peanuts. Peanuts.\\
'''Strike''': How much, at a guess?\\
'''Drummond''': ''(dismissively)'' Five to eight thousand at a push.\\
'''Strike''': Quite a lot of peanuts to some people.
** A similarly-valued painting is the motive as Creator/AgathaChristie's novel ''Literature/AfterTheFuneral'', which is centered around a similarly unlikeable fading aristocratic family. [[spoiler: While this book's GrailInTheGarbage is worth considerably more, the Christie novel makes the point that what an aristocrat might consider 'peanuts' and inadequate for their needs, is more than enough to give a working-class person the means to achieve their dreams and a motive for murder.]]

** At one point, after they've just seen the Uffington White Horse, Cormoran and Robin get into a discussion about the weird names for colors of horses, like how you don't call a brown horse "brown". Cormoran says "Isn't there a play where white horses appear as a death omen?". That's ''Theatre/{{Rosmersholm}}'', the play where the epigrams of very chapter come from.

* ASpotOfTea: How can you tell Robin and Cormoran are British? She brings him a cup of hot tea as he's sitting vigil by the bedside of his nephew Jack, who has been hospitalized with a ruptured appendix.

* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: The name of the Chiswell family is pronounced ''Chizzle''. Over the course of the novel it becomes a shibboleth of sorts as only people already familiar with Jasper Chiswell and his brood pronounce it correctly right of the bat.

* AffairHair: It's not a hair, it's an earring; found by Robin on her bedroom floor after being shaken from the sheets of her marital bed. This is how she finds out that her husband Matthew is cheating on her with his old lover Sarah Shadlock.

* TheBabyTrap: Raphael is the result of an attempt at this by his mother, thinking that Jasper Chiswell would marry her. He didnt. Though its subverted as there is no indication that she lied or sabotaged any attempt at birth control.

* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: Strike removes the bullets from the killer's gun when he has the opportunity, although it is downplayed as when they [[spoiler:hold Robin at gunpoint]] several days have passed and Strike can't be sure that they haven't discovered the gun is empty and reloaded it, so he reasons that [[spoiler:Robin]] is in just as much danger as she otherwise would have been (although in the event, the killer was totally unaware of the fact).

A year has passed since Cormoran Strike's partner Robin Ellacott got married to her fiancé Matthew Cunliffe; their marriage remains strained. Meanwhile, Strike's detective agency has thrived enough that they have been able to hire a couple more operatives. The story gets rolling when a mentally disturbed young man named Billy barges into Strike's office, telling a tale - "I see a kid killed...He strangled it, up by the horse."

* MalMariee: An extreme version of this, as spoiler:TrophyWife Kinvara hates her overbearing asshole of a husband so much that she eventually conspires to murder him.]]

* MalMariee: An extreme version of this, as TrophyWife Kinvara hates her overbearing asshole of a husband so much that she eventually conspires to murder him.

A similarly-valued painting is the motive as Creator/AgathaChristie's novel ''Literature/AfterTheFuneral'', which is centered around a similarly unlikeable fading aristocratic family. [[spoiler: While this book's GrailInTheGarbage is worth considerably more, the Christie novel makes the point that what an aristocrat might consider 'peanuts' and inadequate for their needs, is more than enough to give a working-class person the means to achieve their dreams and a motive for murder.]]

** The motive is the same motive as Creator/AgathaChristie's novel ''Literature/AfterTheFuneral'', which is centered around a similarly unlikeable fading aristocratic family.