OK, now I'm confused. Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote Asey Mayo stories under her own name and also a series of Leonidas Witherall stories under the name of Alice Tilton. Yet here is an Asey Mayo story featuring a character called Myles Witherall who shows some of the characteristics later attributed to Leonidas. To complicate matters further the book is dedicated 'To Alice'. In fact the dates suggest that this book might have provided the inspiration for the second series, which began in 1937; but how 'Myles' became 'Leonidas' remains a mystery.
The Damons, Betsey and Steve, have inherited a run-down old house in small-town Cape Cod. Steve, an aspiring biographer, has a visit from his subject Rosalie Ray, the radio star, who wants him to rewrite history for her. Also present at the scene that follows are the visiting playboy Tom Fowler and the aforementioned Myles Witherall. But Rosalie is not the Damon's only problem -- someone wants to run them out of town, and the mysterious hired man Lem Saddler has already gone for Asey Mayo's help when Rosalie is bloodily murdered in bed with a whaling lance.
Asey straightens out the persecution problem fairly quickly but the murder continues to baffle him. Lem disappears, mysterious observers come and go, there are car and boat chases, and the whole thing is further complicated by the presence of Bat McCracken, an escaped murderer, who seems to be after Myles. In short, there is enough plot for any three ordinary mysteries.
As an early book, this is not quite so deft or amusing as Taylor/Tilton was later to become, but it makes a wonderful antidote to the overlong, underplotted self-absorbed books that characterise modern crime fiction. Recommended.
Jon.
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