I sometimes meet people who dislike finding a lot of humor in their murder mysteries. Murder, I am told, is a serious business. That is undoubtedly true. On the other hand, one time-honored way for dealing with stress (and distress, for that matter) is with laughter. And if you are looking for a reason to laugh during the course of a murder mystery, may I recommend Phoebe Atwood Taylor? She wrote two mystery series, both quite funny (overall). I'd start with Punch With Care, one of Taylor's later books, first published in 1946, featuring Cape Cod handyman and amateur detective, Asey Mayo as its central character. Don't know Asey too well? You really should meet him. Here's my review (written in 2010) of Punch With Care, slightly edited:
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Mark Twain once wrote a short story about a piece of doggerel verse which had a tendency to take over the reader’s mind and refuse to leave. You’ve probably heard it:
Conductor, when you receive a fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
Punch, brothers, punch with care,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare.
I mention this because of the ticket held by a passenger on a privately-owned railroad train. It was, in fact, a GREEN trip slip, with a triangular punch. But this “passenjare” probably didn’t care about the color or the punch, because she had been murdered. And the case wound up in the capable hands of Cape Cod handyman and part-time sleuth Asey Mayo, in Punch with Care, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor.
I’ve had the pleasure of recommending other books in the series of Cape Cod mysteries featuring handyman and detective Asey Mayo. From the dark days of the depression into the start of the 1950s, Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s mysteries were quite popular, not least because of the screwball sense of humor found in many of the stories, particularly the later ones. Punch with Care, which appeared in 1946, was one of her last Asey Mayo books, and it is quite funny – and a pretty good mystery as well.
It begins when Asey Mayo is contacted by a local family which seems to have misplaced its houseguest. The formidable Carolyn Barton Boone has disappeared. Asey finds her, all right – dead, lying in a private railroad car belonging to her host, a railroad enthusiast who has his own small railroad. She is clutching a green ticket, neatly punched.
But when Asey Mayo starts to investigate the murder – all the while wondering why the police haven’t shown up yet – there’s a complication: the body disappears. And despite a fairly frantic search, it can’t be found anywhere. What’s more confusing is that Mrs. Boone’s hosts appear to have gotten a phone call saying that their guest is okay…so they’re no longer worried by the fact that they can’t seem to locate her.
Confused yet? Asey Mayo certainly gets confused by all this, as do a great many other characters – some suspects (though you might ask: suspected of what?), as well as Mayo’s friends and relatives. Pretty soon, Asey – who has a reputation to uphold as the Codfish Sherlock – has his hands full with the fast-moving events. There are kidnappings, another murder (this time with a non-movable though well-hidden corpse) and a boatload of odd clues. All this is flavored with some very funny dialogue and some marvelous Cape Cod characters before it all gets sorted out.
In fact, a great deal of the charm of this book and the other Asey Mayo mysteries is the loving attention paid to both the people and the Cape Cod setting. Taylor spent much of her life living on the cape, and it shows. And it’s fair to say that it’s Asey Mayo’s intimate knowledge of the back roads and byways of the cape that help him solve a pretty challenging mystery. Punch with Care is a fine entry in Phoebe Atwood Taylor’s series.
Oh, by the way…getting back to that rhyme – which, by the way, is slightly misquoted in this book – it’s worth pointing out that Mark Twain insisted that the only way to get this jingle out of your head was to pass it along to some other person.
Which I have now done. To you.
I suggest you go and do the same. And punch with care.
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Next: The League of Frightened Men, by Rex Stout.
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