The Cape Cod Mystery, first published in 1931

1931 in literature

The year 1931 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs' play Green Grow the Lilacs premiers. It would later be adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein as Oklahoma!....

, is a detective story by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

Phoebe Atwood Taylor

Phoebe Atwood Taylor was an American mystery author.Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote mystery novels under her own name, and as Freeman Dana and Alice Tilton. Her first novel, The Cape Cod Mystery, introduced the "Codfish Sherlock", Asey Mayo, who became a series character appearing in 24 novels...

, the first to feature her series detective Asey Mayo, the "Codfish Sherlock". This novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.

Plot summary

Dale Sanborn has made a lot of enemies in his career as a muckraking author, philanderer and occasional blackmailer. When he vacations at a cabin in Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

, any of his many visitors -- an old girl friend, his fiancee, an outraged husband, a long-lost brother and a few more -- the night he died could have killed him, and all of them wanted to. When a respectable Boston matron is involved in the crime, local character Asey Mayo takes a hand and brings the case to a successful, if unexpected, conclusion.