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Asey Mayo Cape Cod Mystery #17
The Perennial Boarder
The familiar Cape Cod setting works its spell, and the cranky, colorful New England characters work their way through a deftly amusing and baffling story of plot and counterplot.She had come every summer for twenty-nine years to stay at what used to be Mrs. Mercer's boarding house but was now Ye Olde Whale Inn. She knew all about Quisset, and Quisset thought it knew all about her. So when Miss Olive Beadle arrived for her thirtieth season, there was nothing to hint at disaster.The murder at Ye Olde Whale Inn hung on a curious series of chance if Ann Joyce and Mrs. Hingham hadn't both been stage-struck; if departing ministers hadn't passed out group photos to the congregation; if Cousin Jenny hadn't found the stuffed tomato…and if a sprained ankle and a load of overdue clams hadn't put Asey Mayo on the scene, matters would have been very different.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1941
53 people want to read
About the author
Phoebe Atwood Taylor
42 books43 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...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 11, 2019
Not perfect, but maybe the best of the Asey Mayos. Limited characters—and limited wackiness. A real detective story—not really solvable by the reader, but close enough. No Syl, but plenty of Jennie Mayo and Doc Cummings. And Asey is in it from the beginning. Hooray!
November 18, 2025
Slight pot boiler but fine
November 17, 2025
This is the 17th Asey Mayo book. Mayo is the "Cape Cod Sherlock". The books were published in the 1930s and 40s. Mayo is an amateur detective who gets called in to help the local police on Cape Cod. He is a calm analytical guy who is always willing to get in the middle of things. In this one he climbs up a trestle to a second-floor room and has a high-speed chase down an unlit dirt road.
Ye Olde Whale Inn is a fancy place in the Cape Cod town of Quisset. Miss Olive Beadle has been summering there for twenty years. She always stays in the same room. She is known as "The Perennial Boarder." A storm knocks out the lights in the Inn. When the lights come back on, Miss Beadle is found shot dead in the lobby telephone booth of the Inn by Asey and Jennie, his cousin and housekeeper.
Taylor unwinds a satisfyingly complicated story. Several people have secret pasts. The Doctor discovers something shocking about the dead body. We get several Cape Cod characters and several red herrings.
I read these stories for the old Cape Cod stuff. This one is from 1941. At one point Asey and Jennie get stopped at a crossroad by a long US Army convoy as the war ramps up.
At another point an old Cape Cod cook explains, "you can't begin to tell no New Yorker about clam chowder because they don't even know what a clam is. They call quahogs clams an' when you try to tell them that clams ain't the same as quahogs, they don't know what you are talking about. I said to one of them last summer, I said, Lady, if you don't know the difference between a quahog and a clam, then there's no wonder you New Yorkers don't feel no sense of shame when you stuff your clam chowder up with canned tomatoes." Some things never change.
There is some very convoluted genealogy. This is also not a classic "fair play" mystery. We don't get all of the clues needed to solve it. We get a new info dump at the end.
This is a fun comforting series of old school mysteries.
Ye Olde Whale Inn is a fancy place in the Cape Cod town of Quisset. Miss Olive Beadle has been summering there for twenty years. She always stays in the same room. She is known as "The Perennial Boarder." A storm knocks out the lights in the Inn. When the lights come back on, Miss Beadle is found shot dead in the lobby telephone booth of the Inn by Asey and Jennie, his cousin and housekeeper.
Taylor unwinds a satisfyingly complicated story. Several people have secret pasts. The Doctor discovers something shocking about the dead body. We get several Cape Cod characters and several red herrings.
I read these stories for the old Cape Cod stuff. This one is from 1941. At one point Asey and Jennie get stopped at a crossroad by a long US Army convoy as the war ramps up.
At another point an old Cape Cod cook explains, "you can't begin to tell no New Yorker about clam chowder because they don't even know what a clam is. They call quahogs clams an' when you try to tell them that clams ain't the same as quahogs, they don't know what you are talking about. I said to one of them last summer, I said, Lady, if you don't know the difference between a quahog and a clam, then there's no wonder you New Yorkers don't feel no sense of shame when you stuff your clam chowder up with canned tomatoes." Some things never change.
There is some very convoluted genealogy. This is also not a classic "fair play" mystery. We don't get all of the clues needed to solve it. We get a new info dump at the end.
This is a fun comforting series of old school mysteries.
September 28, 2025
Asey Mayo and Cousin Jenny find themselves crossing paths multiple times with a Miss Olive Beadle. In a hail storm, in a phone booth —dead, alive and active, on the porch of the Inn — dead. How can this be?
Asey has his suspicions about the whole thing, but it’s difficult, at best, to get his thoughts lined up when Cousin Jenny is around and voicing her opinions.
One of the questions he’s trying to figure out is if the travelling body is the perennial boarder at the Whale Inn.
Plenty of action and a cast of unusual characters guarantee a fast pace read!
Works by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, written in the 1940s, are still an enjoyable and fun read.
Asey has his suspicions about the whole thing, but it’s difficult, at best, to get his thoughts lined up when Cousin Jenny is around and voicing her opinions.
One of the questions he’s trying to figure out is if the travelling body is the perennial boarder at the Whale Inn.
Plenty of action and a cast of unusual characters guarantee a fast pace read!
Works by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, written in the 1940s, are still an enjoyable and fun read.
February 22, 2023
Next up for Asey Mayo involves mistaken identity of a corpse and a very twisted tale. Another fun read.
Want to read
September 24, 2016AKA: Alice Tilton, Freeman Dana
June 18, 2010
Delightful visit to Cape Cod with a fascinating cast of characters, not the least of which is the central figure.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews