Ursula May

Ursula (nee Chillingham) May is Tansy Bestigui‘s sister and Cyprian May‘s wife. She appears in The Cuckoo’s Calling at Strike’s interview with her sister at the restaurant Cipriani. Ursula is characterized as being quite elitist and snobbish in attitude, with a penchant for gold digging.

Like Tansy, Ursula has “long, glossy brown hair,” is “rich-girl thin” and has a tanned face with a “waxy sheen,” suggesting botox and other cosmetic surgery. Also like Tansy, Ursula “subjected Strike to the kind of brazenly critical stares that only people of a certain class feel entitled to give.” It’s more than obvious that she looks down on him with great disdain. In fact, she seems to have the attitude that “she did not think that sitting at a table with her gave him the right to her conversation.”

Ursula figures into The Cuckoo’s Calling‘s plot beyond the lunch scene, but she doesn’t actually appear in the book again.