[HttpPost]
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Test(string name)
{
  int i = 0;
  i = i + 1;
  return Ok();
}

POST http://localhost:8089/api/MyApiController/test

John

POST http://localhost:8089/api/MyApiController/test HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Fiddler
Host: localhost:8089
Content-Length: 26
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{ "name" : "John"}

HTTP/1.1 405 Method Not Allowed
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Allow: GET
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Expires: -1
Server: Microsoft-IIS/8.0
X-SourceFiles: =?UTF-8?B?QzpcRWNvZmljXFNvbGlkUVxKTExcamxsLW1hcmtldHNwaGVyZVxXZWJzaXRlXGFwaVxTZWFyY2hBcGlcaW5kZXg=?=
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 15:51:50 GMT
Content-Length: 73

{"Message":"The requested resource does not support http method 'POST'."}

var content = await Request.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();

http://localhost:8089/api/MyApi/test

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
                name: "DefaultApi1",
                routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{action}",
                defaults: new { action="test" }
            );

[HttpPost]
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Test([Frombody]string name)
{
  int i = 0;
  i = i + 1;
  return Ok();
}

{ "name" : "somtext"}

public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Post( [ FromBody ] **object** items )
{
    Console.WriteLine( items );
    return Ok();
}

{ "name" : "John" }

`POST http://localhost:8089/api/MyApiController/`
User-Agent: Fiddler
Host: localhost:8089
Content-Length: 26

{ "name" : "John" }