The Cape Cod Mystery — Phoebe Atwood Taylor

First published in the US in 1931 by Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis, ''The Cape Cod Mystery'' is the first whodunnit to feature the series detective Asey Mayo, the "Codfish Sherlock".

Dale Sanborn has made a lot of enemies in his career as a muckraking author, philanderer and occasional blackmailer. When he vacations at a cabin in  Cape Cod, any of his many visitors -- an old girl friend, his fiancée, an outraged husband, a long-lost brother and a few more -- the night he died could have killed him, and all of them wanted to. When a respectable  Boston  matron is involved in the crime, local character Asey Mayo takes a hand and brings the case to a successful, if unexpected, conclusion.