What do you think?
Rate this book
Asey Mayo Cape Cod Mystery #18
The Six Iron Spiders
The spirit of Asey Mayo's homecoming is quickly dampened by the discovery of a body in the buttery. One fact is clear: Someone murdered Philemon Mundy with a blunt instrument. The sudden disappearance of the corpse is only the first of many baffling developments. And there is no guarantee that the killer won't strike again.
290 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
About the author
Phoebe Atwood Taylor
45 books46 followersTaylor is an American mystery author. She is best known for her Asey Mayo series, based in Cape Cod. She additionally wrote and published under the pen names Alice Tilton and Freeman Dana.
Phoebe Atwood Taylor, born in 1909 in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first member of her family to have been born off Cape Cod in more than 300 years. Upon graduating from Manhattan's Barnard College, she moved to Weston, Massachusetts, to pen her first work, The Cape Cod Mystery (1931), which was published when she was 22. The book was written while Taylor was caring for her invalid aunt, Alice Tilton (the source of one of her two publishing pseudonyms, the other being Freeman Dana). Taylor was one of the first mystery writers to give a regional and rural rather than urban focus during the time known as the "golden age" of mystery writing (1918 - 1939). Gone with the Wind's author, Margaret Mitchell, was a great fan of the Asey Mayo series, and encouraged Taylor to pack the books with Cape Cod detail. In all, she authored 33 books. She died in 1976 at age 67.
- Bio by The Countryman Press
https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL685...
Phoebe Atwood Taylor, born in 1909 in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first member of her family to have been born off Cape Cod in more than 300 years. Upon graduating from Manhattan's Barnard College, she moved to Weston, Massachusetts, to pen her first work, The Cape Cod Mystery (1931), which was published when she was 22. The book was written while Taylor was caring for her invalid aunt, Alice Tilton (the source of one of her two publishing pseudonyms, the other being Freeman Dana). Taylor was one of the first mystery writers to give a regional and rural rather than urban focus during the time known as the "golden age" of mystery writing (1918 - 1939). Gone with the Wind's author, Margaret Mitchell, was a great fan of the Asey Mayo series, and encouraged Taylor to pack the books with Cape Cod detail. In all, she authored 33 books. She died in 1976 at age 67.
- Bio by The Countryman Press
https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL685...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 1, 2020
The Six Iron spiders (Asey Mayo Cape cod Mystery, #18) by Phoebe Atwood Taylor.
A war is going on and the Cape Cod crowd is busy learning how to care for the wounded and uncover spies. Asey Mayo is returning home for a vacation from the Porter Motor Tank Plant he's been working. His cousin Jennie Mayo, however, is not at home or at the airport to greet him. For that matter neither is Doc Cummings. Instead, what he does observe is a meeting for Red Cross volunteers going on right there in the house. Bandages and splints everything needed including a dummy to simulate real emergencies. Be prepared!
Asey and Doc Cummings (the Cape's physician) wait until the coast is clear and everyone has left to enter the house. They uncover a bag covering the dummy's head and discover it's not what they expected. And so the sleuthing begins. It's a trail of suspects and cars. Personalities and motives abound.
It's another great ride with Asey and Doc until Asey has it all wrapped up in a neat bundle.
I've read this entire Cape Cod mystery series with Asey Mayo and intend to read every last one again. This marvelous author brought us a great Hayseed Sleuth with all the trimmings.
A war is going on and the Cape Cod crowd is busy learning how to care for the wounded and uncover spies. Asey Mayo is returning home for a vacation from the Porter Motor Tank Plant he's been working. His cousin Jennie Mayo, however, is not at home or at the airport to greet him. For that matter neither is Doc Cummings. Instead, what he does observe is a meeting for Red Cross volunteers going on right there in the house. Bandages and splints everything needed including a dummy to simulate real emergencies. Be prepared!
Asey and Doc Cummings (the Cape's physician) wait until the coast is clear and everyone has left to enter the house. They uncover a bag covering the dummy's head and discover it's not what they expected. And so the sleuthing begins. It's a trail of suspects and cars. Personalities and motives abound.
It's another great ride with Asey and Doc until Asey has it all wrapped up in a neat bundle.
I've read this entire Cape Cod mystery series with Asey Mayo and intend to read every last one again. This marvelous author brought us a great Hayseed Sleuth with all the trimmings.
May 31, 2026
Asey Mayo has arrived at his Cape Cod home for two days of leave from his war work at the Porter tank plant. He's expecting a little rest and relaxation. What he gets is mass confusion from start to finish. He had sent a telegram to his cousin/housekeeper Jennie warning her of his arrival and requesting a ride home. No one meets him at the station and he has to hitchhike and walk home. When he gets to his house, it looks like a bunch of lunatics have taken over, with his cousin as the chief looney. Splints and bandages are being wielded on a dummy. Everybody is zipping in and out of the rooms on mysterious errands. His friend Doc Cummings stops him from going in--telling him that he'll only be recruited for First Aid treatment and other entertainments that he wants no part of.
Before Asey can make up his mind about that, Jennie blows a whistle and the entire gang comes rushing out of the house--mounting bicycles, jumping into cars, and even starting up a horse-drawn wagon. They're off on a "Problem"--a mock accident at a surprise (to all but Jennie) location. And they all have to get there by whatever means they can as quickly as they can. Now that the coast is clear, Asey and Doc get into the house in search of supper for the weary traveler. But instead of dinner, they find Philemon Mundy, one of the First Aid group, dead in the buttery from a bash on the head. He's apparently been laid out by an iron "spider" (a cast iron skillet). And, of course, New England's answer to Sherlock Holmes, will have to find out who killed him and why the body was stashed in Asey's larder.
Winds up that there may be a few folks with reason to get Mundy out of the way. He'd recently come to the area and already had his fingers in several of the pies. Perhaps he stepped on one too many toes. Even Jennie had been known to have words with him. But were any of the toes crumpled hard enough to warrant murder? What follows is one of the most convoluted pieces of detection I've come across in a long time...and it's full of folks shouting at one another (generally not in anger) and not letting other folks get a word in edgewise (even as the shouter is demanding said other folks to answer them). Doc Cummings shouts at Asey--because he thinks Asey's not telling him everything. Lieutenant Hanson shouts at pretty much everybody. Asey even "shouts" (though in a much quieter way) at Doc and Hanson and a few of the other characters. The mystery might have been solved a bit quicker if people had just been allowed to talk...
I find with Taylor's books (more so in her Leonidas Witherall series) that there is a definite B movie feel to a great many of them. With all the rushing about and people talking at cross purposes and some of the over-the-top characters, like Tiny Hazard, the large, feminist woman in search of a man, I can picture this as movie in the line of an Abbott and Costello film. This makes for great fun and much confusion and it definitely makes it difficult for the reader to keep track of the players...or the clues...or the motives. If you're looking for a fast read with a lot of fun and don't mind not being able to solve the mystery before Asey tells you all about it, then you'll enjoy this one.
One side note--this is one of few mysteries written during the war years that makes a great deal of the home front war effort. It's played for laughs, but we do get to see what folks were doing--clothing drives, learning First Aid, organizing rescue parties, etc.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
Before Asey can make up his mind about that, Jennie blows a whistle and the entire gang comes rushing out of the house--mounting bicycles, jumping into cars, and even starting up a horse-drawn wagon. They're off on a "Problem"--a mock accident at a surprise (to all but Jennie) location. And they all have to get there by whatever means they can as quickly as they can. Now that the coast is clear, Asey and Doc get into the house in search of supper for the weary traveler. But instead of dinner, they find Philemon Mundy, one of the First Aid group, dead in the buttery from a bash on the head. He's apparently been laid out by an iron "spider" (a cast iron skillet). And, of course, New England's answer to Sherlock Holmes, will have to find out who killed him and why the body was stashed in Asey's larder.
Winds up that there may be a few folks with reason to get Mundy out of the way. He'd recently come to the area and already had his fingers in several of the pies. Perhaps he stepped on one too many toes. Even Jennie had been known to have words with him. But were any of the toes crumpled hard enough to warrant murder? What follows is one of the most convoluted pieces of detection I've come across in a long time...and it's full of folks shouting at one another (generally not in anger) and not letting other folks get a word in edgewise (even as the shouter is demanding said other folks to answer them). Doc Cummings shouts at Asey--because he thinks Asey's not telling him everything. Lieutenant Hanson shouts at pretty much everybody. Asey even "shouts" (though in a much quieter way) at Doc and Hanson and a few of the other characters. The mystery might have been solved a bit quicker if people had just been allowed to talk...
I find with Taylor's books (more so in her Leonidas Witherall series) that there is a definite B movie feel to a great many of them. With all the rushing about and people talking at cross purposes and some of the over-the-top characters, like Tiny Hazard, the large, feminist woman in search of a man, I can picture this as movie in the line of an Abbott and Costello film. This makes for great fun and much confusion and it definitely makes it difficult for the reader to keep track of the players...or the clues...or the motives. If you're looking for a fast read with a lot of fun and don't mind not being able to solve the mystery before Asey tells you all about it, then you'll enjoy this one.
One side note--this is one of few mysteries written during the war years that makes a great deal of the home front war effort. It's played for laughs, but we do get to see what folks were doing--clothing drives, learning First Aid, organizing rescue parties, etc.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
August 24, 2009
The reason I enjoy these is for both the mysteries and for the period technology. First I learned Beach wagons were the precursors to station wagons and now I learn about iron spiders for cooking. These are cast iron skillets with broad flat bottoms and deep slanted sides for ~5 quart capacity. They are footed to stand on three legs in coals. The lid also was ridged to hold coals so the spider was a dutch oven. There should be two briquettes for every inch of pan diameter and there should be two more briquettes on top than there is on the bottom. There will be some pretty big variation in cooking temperature but it's a starting point.
Since these stories are written in the time they talk about they read with so much more assumed common knowledge. This one is the first set in WWII so the culture is changing. Asey returns to find people not acting as they were accustomed. The rationing has limited their movement as well as choices. Tires and petrol being unavailable people are using bicycles and horses for transportation. Civic involvement has people learning first aide, emergency responses are practiced, and enemy craft ID are learned. This is told as the culture is currently changing so reads and feels very immediate compared to reading a history written by a later generation.
Since these stories are written in the time they talk about they read with so much more assumed common knowledge. This one is the first set in WWII so the culture is changing. Asey returns to find people not acting as they were accustomed. The rationing has limited their movement as well as choices. Tires and petrol being unavailable people are using bicycles and horses for transportation. Civic involvement has people learning first aide, emergency responses are practiced, and enemy craft ID are learned. This is told as the culture is currently changing so reads and feels very immediate compared to reading a history written by a later generation.
September 6, 2016
Nice enough Asey--wartime mystery on Cape Cod (of course) with disappearing bodies and Red Cross drills and the usual cast of wacky characters. Maybe trying a little too hard to be wacky.
The spiders are frying pans, by the way.
The spiders are frying pans, by the way.
April 2, 2026
An iron spider is a three-legged cast-iron pan. It is often used for cooking on a beach fire. It is the weapon used to commit the murder at the center of this murder mystery. This 1942 novel is set in WW2 Cape Cod. It is the 18th Asey Mayo Cape Cod mystery.
Asey Mayo comes home for a short vacation from working on designing and building tanks for the army. His cousin, and housekeeper, Jennie is holding a first aid class in his home. The students all rush out for a first aid field exercise. Mayo and his friend Doctor Cummings go into the house and discover a dead body in the buttery. The dead man has been killed by a blunt instrument to the head.
Taylor unwinds a satisfyingly complicated plot with plenty odd suspects and a disappearing corpse. The war looms over the story. Myo notices that woman are suddenly wearing slacks for everyday wear. He does not approve. The Army is carrying out training exercises in the woods. People are on high alert for spies. Someone is suspected because he is interested in maps. Car tires are in short supply.
World war 2 Cape Cod is an excellent setting for this clever well-constructed mystery.
Asey Mayo comes home for a short vacation from working on designing and building tanks for the army. His cousin, and housekeeper, Jennie is holding a first aid class in his home. The students all rush out for a first aid field exercise. Mayo and his friend Doctor Cummings go into the house and discover a dead body in the buttery. The dead man has been killed by a blunt instrument to the head.
Taylor unwinds a satisfyingly complicated plot with plenty odd suspects and a disappearing corpse. The war looms over the story. Myo notices that woman are suddenly wearing slacks for everyday wear. He does not approve. The Army is carrying out training exercises in the woods. People are on high alert for spies. Someone is suspected because he is interested in maps. Car tires are in short supply.
World war 2 Cape Cod is an excellent setting for this clever well-constructed mystery.
February 17, 2019
A bit clearer of a plot than some Asey Mayo's, and a neat glimpse into World War II civilian life (of a bit exaggerated).
May 16, 2020
Loved it
February 22, 2023
More Asey Mayo and another fun read. Now the action is taking place on the home front during World War II, so it is interesting how Taylor used the realities of the time period behind the mystery.
October 7, 2015
In this World War II mystery, Phoebe Atwood Taylor's iconic detective, Asey Mayo, returns home for a long weekend break from his war work at employer Bill Porter's tank factory to find Cape Cod much changed. It's year one of the War, and the local citizenry have thrown themselves into home guard, Red Cross and vigilance with a vengeance. Some of that vengeance, however, is not directed at the enemy abroad. Asey finds a body in his cousin Jennie's buttery, apparently killed by an iron spider--local lingo for a cast iron frying pan. With help from Doc Cummings, and interference from pretty much everyone else, Asey negotiates the suspicions of the war-ready populace while trying to track down the killer, avoid man-hungry women, and find his perpetually on the move cousin Jennie.
As a capsule view of the home front in the early part of World War II, this is an enlightening outing for the classic Yankee detective. I was disappointed with the ending, where way too many loose threads were tied up in the final pages, some of which were not even visible in the preceding chapters. I loathe mysteries where the clues are so obscure the reader doesn't see them at all, or they're just plain not shared. Still, the characters were fun, and Asey's personality is attractive enough to make a few hours in his company enjoyable. Give this one a try if you're curious about Atwood Taylor's series.
As a capsule view of the home front in the early part of World War II, this is an enlightening outing for the classic Yankee detective. I was disappointed with the ending, where way too many loose threads were tied up in the final pages, some of which were not even visible in the preceding chapters. I loathe mysteries where the clues are so obscure the reader doesn't see them at all, or they're just plain not shared. Still, the characters were fun, and Asey's personality is attractive enough to make a few hours in his company enjoyable. Give this one a try if you're curious about Atwood Taylor's series.
June 25, 2014
Who knew that a cast iron frying pan was called a spider on Cape Cod a century ago? Huh. These are fun and well plotted - I got almost 3/4 through before I guessed the murderer - and despite the use of dreaded dialect, they're a nice period slice of New England in the 1930s and 40s. This is the second one I've read and I'm going to look for more.
June 15, 2015
The Six Iron Spiders gives us Cape Cod during the war and Asey Mayo is back home for a weekend leave from his job managing the manufacture of tanks. A good enough mystery with distinct characters and wonderful (and humorous) details of home life during WWII.
October 7, 2012
an oldfashioned fun Cape Cod mystery.
November 17, 2013
ugh! struggled through this.
June 13, 2017
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
Want to Read
September 24, 2016AKA: Alice Tilton, Freeman Dana
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews