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Mayo, Asey. Asey Mayo was created by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Leonidas Witherall) and appeared in twenty-four novels from 1931 to 1951, beginning with The Cape Cod Mystery.

Asey Mayo, the “Codfish Sherlock,” is a tobacco-chewing former sailor who made his first trip to sea on one of the last clipper ships. He retired to the cozy town of Wellfleet, on Cape Cod. In Wellfleet he works as a handyman and chauffeur for the local millionaire, but also finds the time to solve murders. Mayo is tall, lean, and plain in appearance, and described in the novels as “wily, ornery, and homespun.” He is not trained in detection and does not rely on little grey cells or intuition; he simply applies his common sense to mysteries, and that usually proves sufficient.

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