The little vulpine mouth was carmine

From Unnatural Causes by P.D. James.  Having just reread it, I am freshly impressed by the precision of her language and the nuance of her social observation.  I also had not, earlier, recognized that the series was begun in the early 1960s.  It is striking how independent they are of a time.  

They came in, blinking in the light and bringing with them a gust of cold air which billowed the white wood smoke across the room. Celia Calthrop went straight to Dalgliesh's chair and arranged herself as if to receive an evening's homage. Her elegant legs and feet, carefully displayed to advantage, were in marked contrast to her heavy, stoutly-corseted body with its high bosom, and her flabby mottled arms. Dalgliesh supposed that she must be in her late forties but she looked older. As always she was heavily but skillfully made up. The little vulpine mouth was carmine, the deep-set and downward sloping eyes which gave her face a look of spurious spirituality much emphasised in her publicity photographs were blue shadowed, her lashes weighted with mascara. She took off her chiffon headscarf to reveal her hairdresser's latest effort, the hair fine as a baby's through which the glimpses of pink, smooth scalp looked almost indecent.

Dalgliesh had only met her niece twice before and now, shaking hands, he thought that Cambridge had not changed her. She was still the sulky, heavy- featured girl that he remembered. It was not an unintelligent face and might even have been attractive if only it had held a spark of animation.