Punch with Care: An Asey Mayo Cape Cod Mystery

The war is over. Asey Mayo is back on Cape Cod waiting out a strike at the Porter (auto) plant. His old friend, Doc Cummings comes along and wants Asey to help him meet Carolyn Barton Boone, a glamourous activist who is President of a college. She's in the area with a bunch of students doing a study of small towns. Asey agrees when he's called upon to find a missing guest. As always there are lots of interesting characters. Some we get to know quite well. There's Gerty, a beautiful ex-Wac and former showgirl. There's an ex-Wave, a couple of young men, one who's very smart and another who was much decorated in the military. There's Miss Shearing who actually runs the college while Mrs. Boone gathers the attention of the public. And there are the locals, including a couple who write a popular radio soap opera and old Silvester, who lives in a shack in the woods. The first victim is Mrs. Boone, but no one knows she's dead except Asey, the Doc and the murderer because the body was hidden. Further along in the story there's another victim. Asey manages to have it sorted out by the time the bodies are found. Much of the dialogue is very funny. I'm an avid reader of all these books and think if you'd give them a try, you might have as much fun reading them as I do. The punch of the title is a paper punch, not a blow or the stuff you drink.