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The Tinkling Symbol
''The Tinkling Symbol'', 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 whodunnit mystery. Plot summary The little Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ... town of West Weesit has been rocked by four suicides from the same location, now known as "Suicide Cliff". Kay Truman was the found at the foot of the cliff a month prior. Her father, Dave, had already been depressed because his business had failed and his wife had left him. When a number of witnesses in a neighboring house see him come out of his house and aim a gun at himself, they assume the resulting shot is another suicide. But when it is learned that Dave had in fact been stabbed in the back, ...
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Phoebe Atwood Taylor
Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Boston 18 May 1909–Boston 9 January 1976) was an American writer of mystery novels. She graduated from Barnard College in 1930 and married surgeon Grantley Walder Taylor in December 1951. Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote mystery novels under her own name, and as Freeman Dana and Alice Tilton. Her first novel, '' The Cape Cod Mystery'', introduced the "Codfish Sherlock", Asey Mayo, who became a series character appearing in 24 novels. Taylor's work was light in tone, a bit more serious than screwball comedy, but fun and easy to read. According to critic Dilys Winn, "Mrs. Taylor is the mystery equivalent to Buster Keaton."Taylor, Phoebe Atwood (writing as Freeman Dana), ''Murder at the New York World's Fair'', 1938. New York: Random House. From the Introduction to the 1987 trade paperback edition by Dilys Winn, p. ii. She borrowed heavily on her own background (being born in Boston, and very familiar with Cape Cod) to produce books full of local color. "As a whol ...
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Asey Mayo
Avsey (russian: Авсе́й) is a Russian male first name.Petrovsky, p. 36 There are several theories as to its origins.Superanskaya, p. 30 According to one, it is simply a colloquial variant of the name Yevsey.Petrovsky, p. 36 Another possibility is that "Avsey", as well as Asey () and Osey (), are colloquial variants of the name Absey (), alternatively spelled Apsey (), which until the end of the 19th century was included into the official Synodal Menologium.Superanskaya, pp. 23 and 30 Finally, it is possible that "Avsey" derives from the Old East Slavic word or ( or ), meaning '' New Year's Eve'', which in ancient times corresponded to the first day of spring. The diminutive of "Avsey" is Avseyka (). The patronymics derived from "Avsey" are "" (Avseyevich; masculine) and its colloquial form "" (Avseich), and "" (Avseyevna; feminine). The patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, ...
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Mystery Fiction
Mystery is a genre fiction, fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains wiktionary:mysterious, mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a detective (such as Sherlock Holmes), who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Some mystery books are non-fiction. Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism. Mystery fiction can involve a supernatural mystery in which the solution does not have to be logical and even in which there is no crime involved. This usage was common in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s ...
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Detective Fiction
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades. History Ancient Some scholars, such as R. H. Pfeiffer, have suggested that certain ancient and religious texts bear similarities to what would later be called detective fiction. In the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders (the Protestant Bible locates this story within the apocrypha), the account told by two witnesses broke down when Daniel cross-examines th ...
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1935 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1935. Events *January – The first published portions of Yasunari Kawabata's novel '' Snow Country'' (雪国, ''Yukiguni'') appear as standalone stories in Japanese literature. *March 20 – The London publisher Boriswood pleads guilty and is fined in Manchester's Assize Court for publishing an "obscene" book, a 1934 cheap edition of James Hanley's 1931 novel '' Boy''. * May 13 – T. E. Lawrence, having left the British Royal Air Force in March, has an accident with his Brough Superior motorcycle while returning to his cottage at Clouds Hill, England, after posting books to a friend, A. E. "Jock" Chambers, and sending a telegram inviting the novelist Henry Williamson to lunch. He dies six days later. On July 29 his '' Seven Pillars of Wisdom'' is first published in an edition for general circulation. * June 15 ** W. H. Auden concludes a marriage of convenience with Erika Mann. ** T. S. Eliot' ...
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Hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo the dust jacket in favor of printing the cove ...
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Paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic. Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets, yellow-backs, yellowbacks, dime novels, and airport novels. Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In the United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes. Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to the lower cost of paperbacks. Paperb ...
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Sandbar Sinister
''Sandbar Sinister'', first published in 1934, 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 The picturesque village of East Pochet in Cape Cod is not its usual self when Elizabeth Colton drives into it; the previous evening, a bootlegger dumped two hundred cases of liquor offshore, and the whole town reaped the windfall. At some point during the boozy celebrations, however, a bearded mystery writer ended up dead in the boat house at the Sandbar estate. Asey Mayo must figure out the comings and goings of a number of interested parties before he puts together the meaning of a mysterious fire in the living room and a tube of salve A salve is a medical ointment used to soothe the surface of the body. Medical uses Magnesium sulphate paste is used as a drawing salve to treat small boils and infected wounds and to remove 'draw' small s ...
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Deathblow Hill
''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 Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ... 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 ...
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Novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ...
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Whodunnit
A ''whodunit'' or ''whodunnit'' (a colloquial elision of "Who asdone it?") is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues to the case, from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric, amateur, or semi-professional detective. Concept A whodunit follows the paradigm of the classical detective story in the sense that it presents crime as a puzzle to be solved through a chain of questions that the detective poses. In a whodunit, however, the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. This engages the readers so that they strive to compete with or outguess the expert investigator. A defining feature of the whodunit narrative is the s ...
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Mystery Novel
Mystery is a fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a detective (such as Sherlock Holmes), who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Some mystery books are non-fiction. Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism. Mystery fiction can involve a supernatural mystery in which the solution does not have to be logical and even in which there is no crime involved. This usage was common in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, whose titles such as ''Dime Myst ...
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