The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern - Hardcover

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Author), Otto Penzler (Introduction by)

Asey Mayo, the Sherlock of Cape Cod, investigates the murder of a local innkeeper.

In a small Cape Cod town, a local tavern owner is convinced that someone is trying to kill her. She tells tales of being shot at in the woods and of a trip wire strung up at the top of her staircase. Others in the village think she's just out for some free publicity, as she's always cooking up creative ways to get people into her establishment. But then she's found stabbed to death and her suspicions are confirmed.

Man about town and jack of all trades Asey Mayo is helping out at the tavern when the murder occurs, and he's just the sleuth that such a dastardly case needs. It seems that Eve Prence had no shortage of enemies both at the inn and around the town. Asey Mayo knows people--especially Cape Codders--and has both the common sense and the deductive powers necessary to cut through the puzzling case and determine whodunit. But will he succeed before an innocent person takes the fall?

A light, entertaining mystery with a richly described 1930s Cape Cod setting, The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern is an exemplary Golden Age cozy, replete with charming characters and period detail.

Author Biography

Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1909-1976) was one of the most beloved and most successful mystery authors of the 1930s and 1940s, writing under her own name and two pseudonyms, Freeman Dana and Alice Tilton. The Asey Mayo character, first introduced in The Cape Cod Mystery, went on to star in 24 novels in a series informed by the author's generations-long family history in Cape Cod.

Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of the Mysterious Press (1975); Mysterious Press.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City's Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from Noircon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 80 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.