We discuss chapters 1-9 of Ngaio Marsh's Eighth Roderick Alleyn novel, 'Overture to Death'. In Pen Cuckoo, the village's top families get together to discuss their latest community effort - a fundraising play to buy a new piano. All of the village drama comes to the fore as the inheritor of the largest estate seeks to marry, setting off dominos of interpersonal drama in the love lives of those involved. It all comes to a head when on opening night, the last-minute pianist for the concert's head erupts in blood as a gunshot fires from within the venue. How did this grizzly fate come to bear? Herds is tasked to find out.