Punch with Care

Asey Mayo Cape Cod Mystery #23

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

Back by popular demand for the first time in years, The Countryman Press is pleased to reissue four Cape Cod mysteries featuring the witty and salty Asey Mayo, "A local handyman who knows something about police work and everything about everybody's business" (Marilyn Stasio, Mystery Alley). Set within the brooding landscape of Cape Code, these classic who-dunits are sure to please dedicated Phoebe Atwood Taylor fans and newcomer mystery buffs alike. When Asey Mayo happens upon the body of writer Carolyn Barton Boone in an antique railroad car, a punched ticket in her hand, things get interesting. But then the corpse disappears!

Genres: Mystery

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Taylor 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...

Reviews

[Kwoomac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote 24 Asey Mayo stories over a 20 year period, 1931 to 1951. Asey lives on Cape Cod and is often called upon to help solve local mysteries. His friends refer to him as the "Codfish Sherlock" . I always picture him as a cross between Colombo and Matlock. In these stories, there are three groups of characters; the locals just trying to live their simple lives, the summer people, who are mostly trouble, and the outlanders, who are definitely nothing but trouble.

One of my favorite things about reading these books is the sense of time and place. This book was written in 1946. There are some references to the war and people are still standing in lines to get their rations. Asey, in a comment about the silliness of summer people, talks about how they buy what they think of as quaint capecoddy cottages and then completely change them into something else completely. Still happening! He also talks about how the local artists aren't good enough for the summer people and they're buying stuff by Picasso and even Dali!

For me the mystery is secondary to atmosphere and I never even attempt to try to solve the mystery. I'm surely not as clever as Asey and so I let him do all the legwork. Some might find the books too dated, but for me they're just good old-timey fun.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good as usual--interesting post-war details mixed with Asey and Doc and Jennie chasing a murderer. Asey does a long interview at the end that explains the usual confusion, a little too undramatically, maybe. But there is an unexpected twist! Not the best, but at least Asey is present the whole time.

[Lillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Michael Reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 1946 Asey Mayo adventure. It is the 23rd in this excellent series. It feels like Taylor was getting tired.

The book captures the return to peace adjustment in post-World War Cape Cod. It opens with a few locals complaining about the return of the tourists now that the war is over. Then a group of GI Bill college students show up to do a sociological "project" on Mayo's hometown. The flamboyant head of the project is murdered, and Mayo starts to investigate.

I confess that I had problems following the plot. A passel of suspects get suspected. There are multiple subplots and red herrings. There seems to be a straightforward way to get to the bottom of things by talking to a key witness. Mayo waits to the end of the book to talk to the witness and the explanation for the key conversation is just silly.

There is some fun stuff on the rise of radio dramas and prize giveaway contests and Taylor has some fun with the young kids these days.

Overall, this is lesser Mayo.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yay, found another one I didn’t have at Powell’s and of course, couldn’t resist reading it right away! Another fun read.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing and incredible how much plot and action can be conveyed almost entirely through dialogue

[Linda Brue · Rating 2 out of 5]

PUNCH WITH CARE, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, 1946
Asey Mayo series. From the publisher:

Asey Mayo, Cape Cod’s gift to the amateur detective world, tackles another baffling mystery, which creeps up on him before he knows it, smack between the one o’clock Bull Moose siren and the one o’clock Quick Quiz Question on WBBB. While murder is no novelty to Mayo, this case involves him with such bizarre items as the Pochet and Back Shore Railroad, a private narrow-gauge line in Mrs. Douglass’s back yard; Lulu Belle, its antique Pullman with the silver-plated spittoons; Carolyn Barton Boone and her Larrabee College Project on Town Government; and a few bewildered adolescents who had always intended to go to college anyway. As might be expected, Cousin Jennie aids and abets the case between batches of sugar gingerbread, and old Doc Cummings gleans further material for his projected memoirs From Mustard Plaster to Penicillin. There are the clam diggers too, and the Summer Folks, and, of course, the Tourist Trade.
Just who the corpse is, and where Asey got it—well, these questions along with dozens of other strange and intriguing happenings are handled shrewdly and expertly in the murder-cum-humor mystery that continues to delight Phoebe Atwood Taylor fans.

I'd been looking forward to starting one of the Asey Mayo books, and the library had this one, so here I began. I did enjoy the book. Such interesting characters, lots of humor, and a great plot. Do you sense a "but" coming? Yes, there is one--such a big one that it really spoiled it for me--the dialect of Asey drove me nuts. Usually that doesn't jerk me out of the story. It just takes me a few pages to get used to the flow of words and I'm fine. Not so this time. Asey's particular vernacular just grated on my brain. I can't explain it.

[Jessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by the Classic Mysteries podcast. An interesting story I might not have otherwise found.
Asey Mayo is a well-known detective on the East Coast (with the "accent" to prove it.) In this book, he comes up on a dead body in the personal train car of some summer folk. But when he then goes into the house, the occupants are acting strangely and a return to the train car reveals that the body has disappeared. His companion, the local doctor, also disappears as well as his new car. He'll need all of his detecting skills to solve this many mysteries all at the same time.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Denise M.]

AKA: Alice Tilton, Freeman Dana

[Info · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great Asey Mayo book

I only wish these were in audiobook format. Chasing around Cape Cod, I always feel like I’m on vacation and sightseeing.