"The Asey Mayo Trio"

A murder committed inside a Cape Cod house being moved to a new lot. A new teacher at a local girls' school is found dead when she arrives at her new job. And an astronomer turns up murdered inside his observatory. Three cases for the "Codfish Sherlock," in "The Asey Mayo Trio: Three Cape Cod Mysteries," a collection of short novels or long short stories by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, and the subject of today's book review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, which may be heard here.

If you're not familiar with Asey Mayo, these stories from the early 1940s will be a good introduction. A man of all trades, he knows Cape Cod - and its residents - very well, and, as critic Marilyn Stasio is quoted as saying, he's "a local handyman who knows something about police work and everything about everybody's business." It's funny and also insightful and makes fine reading on a cold (or warm?) winter's night.

Comments

[Jeffrey Marks]

Be sure to also check out the Alice Tilton books by Phoebe Atwood Taylor as well. They are great fun.

[Les Blatt]

Good point. The books written as Alice Tilton feature the exploits of mystery writer, teacher and Shakespeare look-alike Leonidas Witherall. They're great fun indeed - lots of slapstick humor and cliffhangers. I'll have to review one of them (as soon as I learn to pronounce "Leonidas" properly...) Thanks!