Country United States Series Asey Mayo Publication date 1935 Preceded by Sandbar Sinister (1934) | Language English Publisher (USA) Originally published 1935 Followed by The Tinkling Symbol OCLC 54256714 | |
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Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) Genres Mystery, Detective fiction Similar The Tinkling Symbol, The Mystery of the Cape, The Crimson Patch, Out of Order, Banbury bog | ||
Deathblow Hill, first published in 1935, is a detective story by Phoebe Atwood Taylor which features her series detective Asey Mayo, the "Codfish Sherlock". This novel is a mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.
Plot summary
Between two neighboring Cape Cod houses there is a chain link fence topped with barbed wire to signify the feud between the two halves of the Howes family. The disappearance of the fortune left by ancestor Bellamy Howes has divided Suzanne from her eccentric relative Simon. The fence has kept them apart, but now there are mysterious things happening at both homes—unexplained ransackings, unexplained prowlers wearing yellow handkerchiefs, and two near stranglings. When wealthy Benjamin Carson is strangled and left on the doorstep of one of the two houses on Deathblow Hill, Asey Mayo is called in to set to right both little mysteries (such as Bellamy's ships-in-bottles collection) and large mysteries like a tidy murderer.