Octagon House: An Asey Mayo Mystery

 Octagon House is a 1937[1] serialized novel by Phoebe Atwood Taylor that was distributed by the Associated Press and appeared in multiple newspapers in the United States.[2]
Plot
Octagon House tells the story of a New England town so scandalized by the offensive mural installed in their new post office that they paint over it.[2] The novel focuses on government incompetence in general; a large and luxurious post office is built in a Cape Cod town with only 800 year-round residents.[2] The mural, painted on the ceiling by Jack Lorne, a local painter who had stolen the commission through cronyism, is titled The History and Customs of Cape Cod.[2] Asey Mayo, the protagonist, is called in to solve the murder of Lorne's wife Marina.[2] Multiple local prominent citizens are "viciously caricatured" in the painting.[3]
Reactions to the mural take center stage to the solving of the mystery, as the townspeople are aghast at what it depicts:
    No living man could describe that mural, and if he could, no one would believe him...Peace, her wings protruding from beach pajamas, was starting a side chancery on a clam digger, who resented it vigorously. Ignoring three heavily armed apes in gas masks who belabored her from virtually every angle, Peace beamed down at a stalwart youth whose full nelson on Capital was definitely getting results...From the clam digger's left knee tottered a leering British Grenadier, and a priest hugging a mussed Red Cross nurse. Near her, two tired women stirred something steaming in a kettle. Out of the steam emerged a Model T Ford driven by a child...Myles Standish sat in a cramped position on the spare tire.
    — Phoebe Atwood Taylor