2-3-4 Challenge Book Discussions #1 discussion

Serafina deceives Sarah and Frank by falsely identifying the dead body as Nicola. Did you suspect she was lying at the time? Why or why not?

Yes I did but I am not sure why. Maybe I have read too many mysteries and I am always sceptical of everything!

I suspected she was lying immediately when she broke down. It didn’t seem genuine and she should have known from his torso. She was looking for something on him to be an identifier she could lie about. I’d know my husband’s chest, legs and feet upon sight, and especially his hands. Serafina didn’t react to any of those body parts.

This was a bizarre point in the story. Maybe she thought that if others thought him already dead they wouldn't keep looking for him?

That’s exactly why she did it.

It was clear to me that she lied. I suspected that she wanted Malloy and Sarah to believe that Nicola was dead so that she could meet up with him later.

I didn't know what to think when she was identifying the body. I wondered if the hands and feet were so injured from the fight that she couldn't recognize him. I did end up believing her when she identified him as Nicola.

Betcha you were highly annoyed when you discovered she’d lied.

I should have guessed that she was lying. I didn't believe most of the things that she told them. I should never have believed that it was Nicola's body.

I was preoccupied by the feminine Nicola (well, I don't know Italian, obviously) and thought his name should have been Niccolo!

That IS an odd way to spell a masculine Italian name. Here’s what I found on Wikipedia:

Nicola is a Latinised version of the Greek personal name Nikolaos (Νικόλαος), derived from Nikos meaning "victory", and laos meaning "people", therefore implying the meaning "Victory of the people". The English form of the same name is Nicholas. Nicola was a frequently given male personal name among the traditional Italian nobility, and was used often in the Middle Ages.[1]

The spelling irritated me too. I had to keep telling myself it's a man, it's a man.

At first I believed he had died, but I became suspicious when she made a comment to Frank that it meant they'd stop looking for him or something like that.

Being Italian myself, 'Nicola' is a perfectly normal name for a man, so I didn't have that problem. The feminine equivalent for Nicola is Nicoletta. Actually in Italian there are quite a few masculine names that end with 'a', e.g. Luca, Mattia, Andrea (=Andrew. Yes, over here it's a masculine name! And looking at its Greek origin, it isn't all that strange), to name some very common ones.

Thanks for clarifying that, Giulia! So many intersections with the Greek culture, too.

It's fascinating to see how the same names change in different languages. One spelling that usually gives me problems is when a woman is called Simone, because that's how we spell the masculine form (the feminine is Simona).

Simone is French (I believe). Language is just so interesting.