Mystery of the Sycamore

Mystery of the Sycamore (1918) is a cunning golden age detective novel where political ambition curdles into murder. When former Governor Samuel Appleby sentences his former rival Daniel Wheeler to imprisonment on his own homestead rather than prison, the arrangement seems lenient until Appleby's true motive emerges: he wants Wheeler to endorse his son's candidacy for governor, with freedom as the reward. But before the deal is struck, Appleby is found dead in Wheeler's home, and the former prisoner becomes the prime suspect. Carolyn Wells, a master of early 20th-century detection, weaves together love triangles, betrayals, and plenty of gumshoe dialog into a puzzle that refuses to play fair with the reader. The solution arrives with satisfying twist after satisfying twist, each one recalibrating what you thought you knew about the household and their secrets. This is vintage Wells: clever, witty, and utterly devoted to the art of the fair-play mystery.