The Tinkling Symbol

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The Tinkling Symbol
First edition
AuthorPhoebe Atwood Taylor
CountryUSA
LanguageEnglish
SeriesAsey Mayo
GenreMystery, Detective novel
PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
Publication date
1935
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages288 pp
OCLC28564135
813/.52 20
LC ClassPS3539.A9635 T56 1993
Preceded bySandbar Sinister (1934) 
Followed byDeathblow Hill (1935) 

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 mystery of the type known as a whodunnit.

Plot summary

The little Cape Cod town of West Weesit has been rocked by four suicides from the same location, now known as "Suicide Cliff". Last month, Kay Truman was the latest body to be found at the foot of the cliff. Her father, Dave, had already been depressed because his business had failed and his wife had left him. A number of witnesses in a neighboring house see him come out on the porch with a gun and aim it at himself, and they assume the resulting shot is another suicide. But when it is learned that Dave had in fact been stabbed in the back, Asey Mayo takes a hand and soon becomes a target for a determined shooter. In between, he sorts out some local Cape Cod entanglements and learns the meaning of a dying clue left by Dave Truman -- "ink"—and what the tinkling bell around the neck of Sully the cat has to do with anything.