If you’re not familiar with Asey Mayo, the central character in two dozen books written by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, he’s a Cape Cod native, born and bred, with an uncanny knack for unraveling complex mysteries. You can get a very good introduction to Asey in Three Plots for Asey Mayo, a book containing three novellas starring the "Codfish Sherlock." It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.
When the series began, in 1931, Asey was introduced to readers as the former handyman and yacht captain for the family of automobile magnate Bill Porter. By the time of Three Plots for Asey Mayo, which appeared in book form in 1942, Asey is not only one of the directors of the Porter Company, but he’s also a famous (or infamous) detective. All three of the stories follow the same general pattern – one that is common to a lot of the novels as well. Very early in the story, Asey Mayo finds strange and seemingly inexplicable things going on around him. He then stumbles over a dead body (and there are likely to be more dead bodies before the end). The strange activities around him turn out to have more-or-less-plausible explanations. Once Asey clears those impediments out of his way, he is able to see more clearly what really did happen and he confronts the murderer, explaining how a very clever plot, usually with “impossible crime” elements, was committed. It’s a formula, but one that works pretty well.
Three stories. Three plots. Or, more accurately, Three Plots for Asey Mayo. The three novellas are called "The Headacre Plot," "The Wander Bird Plot" and "The Swan Boat Plot." Two take place on Asey's beloved Cape Cod; the third shifts the scene to Boston's Public Gardens, near the city's famous swan boats. For a fuller description of what you can expect in these three stories, please do click over and listen to the podcast. As usual, Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s tongue is planted firmly in her cheek, and there’s a lot of enjoyable wit and humor in the telling of these stories – plus, I should say, more than a touch of darkness in the plots and their resolution. But then, this is murder, after all. I think you’ll enjoy it.
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