Death Lights a Candle (An Asey Mayo Cape Cod Mystery) » (Reprint)

Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1909-76) was born in Boston, and was the first member of her family to have been born off Cape Cod in more than 300 years. Taylor was one of the first mystery writers to give a regional and rural focus to mystery writing during its "golden age" (1918-39). Taylor authored 33 books, most of which are volumes in the Asey Mayo private-eye series. Among Taylor's fans was Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell.

There's been no shortage of trouble on Cape Cod that March. A house party of men and women has been snowed in—and cut off from the world outside. The host is murdered. Poisoning, the doctor says; probably arsenic. But almost everyone is found to have arsenic among his or her possessions.

Asey Mayo fans, and newcomers, will have much to discover in Death Lights a Candle, with its special New England flavor and Cape Cod characters. As Marilyn Stasio, columnist for the New York Times writes, "Taylor's droll period whodunits are a special treat, thanks to the Codfish Sherlock, Asey Mayo, a salty Cape codger who entertains summer visitors by solving picturesque crimes."