Sinopsis

Quanomet, sleepiest little town on Cape Cod, burst into headlines with the opening of its new Post Office — complete with pink granite steps, chromium pillars and an amazing mural decorating its walls. And Quanomet stayed in the headlines after the Post Office became what the press called The Incredible Backdrop to These Startling Incidents.

Asey Mayo enters the scene when he finds Pam Frye of Octagon House shivering on his wharf. All her life Pam had hunted ambergris—and now she has found a huge lump. Pam’s other, and even more startling, news item is that her sister, the bewitching Marina, has just been killed, with Pam’s knife.

As one gruesome event succeeds another, even Asey despairs of fitting all the pieces of the fantastic puzzle into one picture. We have Aunt Nettie Hobbs, the Pickle Lime Lady, and Dr. Frye, proud of his collection of clocks and his ownership of that rarity, a real Octagon House. There is the red Persian cat named Emma Goldman and Toots the parrot, who won’t talk about what he saw. Then there is Pam Frye herself, innocent bystander; Jack Lorne, husband of the glamorous Marina and painter of the Post Office mural; and finally the mural itself, which discloses more than meets the eye. All are grist to Asey’s mill as his uncanny perceptions lead him to avert the final catastrophe and unmask one of the smoothest criminals who ever went free.