So, this week’s forgotten book serves two purposes. The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern is indeed an older classic mystery originally published in 1934 by W. W. Norton and largely unfamiliar to most contemporary mystery readers. It was also re-issued by American Mystery Classics in May 2025 with a helpful introduction by series editor Otto Penzler, thus making it eligible for the Classic Crime Reprint of the Year Award, an annual event established by Golden Age expert Kate Jackson, otherwise known as the Armchair Reviewer. For two consecutive weeks bloggers will talk about one of the classic crime titles re-issued during 2025, then readers will have the opportunity to vote for one of them as their favorite of the year or nominate a title of their own. To see a list of this year’s qualifying books, visit Cross-Examining Crime here: https://crossexaminingcrime.com/2025/12/02/classic-crime-reprints-2025-a-list/. The goal of course is to ensure your TBR lists are as overstuffed as ours are.

The first of my books from the list is by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1909–1976), who was born in Boston and used her extensive knowledge of the area and its residents to add realistic local color to her books. She began publishing in 1931 with the first mystery featuring Asey Mayo, a Cape Cod native and jack of all trades. Mayo was the main character in 24 volumes published between 1931 and 1951. For more about Taylor see Otto Penzler’s article on CrimeReads: https://crimereads.com/phoebe-atwood-taylor-cape-cod/

The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern is the fourth book in the series. By this point in the series Mayo is well-established as a competent if unorthodox sleuth. His role as handyman justifies his popping up almost anywhere at any time on the Cape. Just now he is working in the village of Weesit, where Eve Prence has returned from Paris and taken over management of a tavern owned by her family for generations, converting it into a sort of writer’s retreat. When the book opens, children’s poet Lila Talcott is there with her young son, along with playwright Tony Dean with his adult son Norris, controversial fiction author Alex Stout, Eve’s stepsister Anne Bradford, and Mark Adams who has urgently summoned his aunt Elspeth Adams from Boston to join him. Elspeth is the narrator of the story and serves as Mayo’s sidekick.

When Elspeth arrives, Eve is claiming someone is trying to kill her. She is well known for her publicity stunts, though, and no one believes her. But then Eve is stabbed to death, leaving no question about the veracity of the threat. The local prosecutor, known for his ineptitude, makes a fast arrest with no real evidence and then closes the investigation. Mayo swings into action and runs circles around the local authorities while dropping dry witticisms here and there.

This is an early example of a regional mystery where the characteristics of the area and its residents are important to the story and they are incorporated seamlessly into the narrative. With apparently solid alibis for everyone and the clues well hidden, I could not guess the culprit, which is always a plus. For a change, I find myself in good company, as crime fiction expert Allen J. Hubin, reviewer for the New York Times said in his Criminals at Large column of 26 May 1968 that he didn’t guess it either.

For fans of amateur sleuths and of regional mysteries, especially readers who enjoyed the J. W. Jackson books by Philip Craig and the Victoria Trumbull books by Cynthia Riggs, and for followers of traditional mysteries.