The Floating Admiral

by The Detection Club (Editor), Simon Brett (Forward), G.K. Chesterton (Prologue)

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton and nine other writers from the legendary Detection Club collaborate in this fiendishly clever but forgotten crime novel first published 80 years ago.

Inspector Rudge does not encounter many cases of murder in the sleepy seaside town of Whynmouth. But when an old sailor lands a rowing boat containing a fresh corpse with a stab wound to the chest, the Inspector's investigation immediately comes up against several obstacles. The vicar, whose boat the body was found in, is clearly withholding information, and the victim's niece has disappeared. There is clearly more to this case than meets the eye – even the identity of the victim is called into doubt. Inspector Rudge begins to wonder just how many people have contributed to this extraordinary crime and whether he will ever unravel it…

In 1931, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and ten other crime writers from the newly-formed ‘Detection Club’ collaborated in publishing a unique crime novel. In a literary game of consequences, each author would write one chapter, leaving G.K. Chesterton to write a typically paradoxical prologue and Anthony Berkeley to tie up all the loose ends. In addition, each of the authors provided their own solution in a sealed envelope, all of which appeared at the end of the book, with Agatha Christie’s ingenious conclusion acknowledged at the time to be ‘enough to make the book worth buying on its own’.

The authors of this novel are: G. K. Chesterton, Canon Victor Whitechurch, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane and Anthony Berkeley.

Genres: Mystery, Agatha Christie, Fiction, Crime, Classics, Mystery Thriller, Detective

247 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1931

About the author

Formed c. 1930, the Detection Club is a group of (mostly British) mystery writers who occasionally write collaborative works.

Presidents:
G.K. Chesterton (1930–1936)
E. C. Bentley (1936–1949)
Dorothy L. Sayers (1949–1957)
Agatha Christie (1957–1976)
Lord Gorell (1957–1963)
Julian Symons (1976–1985)
H. R. F. Keating (1985–2000)
Simon Brett (2000–2015)
Martin Edwards (2015–)

Past members include: Anthony Berkeley, G.D.H. Cole, Margaret Cole, Freeman Wills Croft, Clemence Dane , Edgar Jepson, Milward Kennedy, Ronald Knox, John Rhode, Henry Wade, Victor L. Whitechurch, Gladys Mitchell, E.C.R. Lorac and Helen de Guerry Simpson

Reviews

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was in high school, I was part of a little group of friends who all wanted to be writers. In my sophomore year, we started an informal writing exercise, called The Notebook Game. Basically it would go like this: someone would start writing a story in a notebook (maybe three pages, just to set up the scene and some of the characters), and then give the notebook to someone else, who would continue the story. They would pass it to the next person, and on and on, with the notebook traveling around the group while we wrote the story collectively. There were rules: you could couldn't hang on to the notebook for longer than a week, you were not allowed to kill off anyone else's characters or have their characters have sudden unexplained changes of heart (unless the character's creator gave you permission to do so) and if you wanted your character to make out with someone else's character you needed the writer's approval first. The notebook stories were usually abandoned after a few weeks (I remember one that was shared between five or six of us, and no one had any idea what sort of plot to do so we all kept introducing new characters whenever it was our turn to have the notebook), but there was one really successful notebook story that I did with two of my friends. It turned into this (really very dumb) fantasy story about warriors who could turn into dragons (but that ended up not being important) and my big character was a witch who was basically a carbon copy of the main character in this Morgan le Faye novel I was reading at the time, but the point was that she ended up fighting a war with the bad-boy dragon prince and at the end they made out and we were all very pleased with our fifteen-year-old selves. The point is that the stories we managed to create were pretty terrible and usually devolved into total messes, but it was really fun. And I still have the original notebooks that contained the dragon story (it got so long that we ran out of space in the six-subject one we started with, and had to buy a new one for the last few chapters).

I thought that this was something that was unique to my own clique of silly high school friends, so imagine my delight when I was browsing through a secondhand bookstore and found The Drowned Admiral, which is the grown-up legitimate version of The Notebook Game.

This is a real thing: in the '30's, there was a club of detective novel writers that included Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, and GK Chesterton. They would get together and help each other with their plots and probably be unbearably clever and delightful, and then one day one of them said, "Hey, why don't we all write a detective novel together?" What follows was probably a blast for everyone involved: the group decided on a scenario: one morning in a small seaside town, a dead man is found in a rowboat floating downstream. Each person (fourteen writers in all) writes one chapter of the mystery, with only the previous chapters to give them any indication of where the investigation is headed. It's a really cool idea, if only because you have these professional detective writers analyzing the previous chapters and trying to figure out what the solution might be, and then adding their own twists. There's one single solution at the end, and then as an epilogue all the authors write a little bit explaining what was going on in their chapter and what solution they were working towards at the time.

Does it sound like a complete and utter clusterfuck? It does, and it is. The big problem is not the different solutions the authors came up with in their chapters (in fact, they all arrived at almost the exact same conclusions about certain plot twists, apparently independently of each other, so their specific solutions to the mystery are pretty similar); the problem is that each author adds another twist to the mystery in his or her chapter. So not only do we have the admiral being murdered and put in a rowboat, but the rowboat has no traces of blood. And the river tides make the time of death difficult to pin down. And the rope attached to the boat had been cut twice. And no one can find the dress that the admiral's niece was wearing on the night of the murder. And the niece has a suspicious finace who changes his alibi halfway through the book. And there's a missing file in the admiral's office. And a mysterious woman who no one recognized stopped at the Vicarage on the night of the murder. And...on and on and on, twist piled on top of twist. It gets so bad that poor Ronald A. Knox spent the entirety of his chapter having the detective write down all the questions surrounding the case - he ends up with thirty-nine goddamn things that need to be cleared up. Clemence Dane, who wrote the last chapter before the solution was revealed, throws up his hands and says in his explanatory epilogue, "I am, frankly, in a complete muddle as to what has happened, and have tried to write a chapter that anybody can use to prove anything they like."

That, in a nutshell, describes the experience of reading this book. It must have been a fun experiment for the authors, but maybe once they were finished they should have done what my friends and I did in high school: congratulate yourselves on finishing a story, then hide the notebooks under your bed and hope your mom doesn't find them.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★

The Detection Club must have been the coolest club around.

A group of highly successful mystery writers getting together sharing their love of mysteries & detective fiction over regular dinners in London.

The idea of a group of the members each writing a chapter to a murder mystery was intriguing - & with writers as skilled as Agatha Christie & Dorothy L. Sayers involved - what could go wrong?

Unfortunately quite a bit.



After G.K. Chesterton's introduction (which I have already forgotten) Victor L. Whitechurch got the story off to a cracking start. & all the writer's kept to a similar tone. But Milward Kennedy "read"completely different than the other writers. It really didn't flow well at all! Dorothy L. Sayers did her best to get the story on track, but unfortunately the writer that followed her, Ronald A. Knox followed with an incredibly dry list of questions & possible suspects. Able writing by the rest of the writers (including a wonderful twist from Clemence Dane) couldn't save this book for me after that. I would recommend skipping Knox's chapter altogether. It does nothing but drag the book down. A problem with writing with your mates I guess. Sayers wasn't ruthless enough as an editor.



& the appendix where each writer gave their solution? Another disappointment as for me the most interesting person to hear from would have been the writer of Chapter 1, but Whitechurch & the writers of Chapter 2 (The Coles) didn't give their solutions. I would have loved to have read where he thought the story would go. & Knox gave another dull list before offering his solution. No surprise here but I liked Christie's ideas the best!

So in Whitechurch, Dane & John Rhode I have found new writers I want to try & others I will quite definitely avoid.

[Vikas Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant idea. Ten different Eleven authors including Agatha Christie, all members of the detection club come together to write a prologue and one chapter each of the plot. The story line flows seamlessly from the writings of one author to the other. Several of them including Christie provide their own solution to the murder. Must read for the sheer brilliance of the idea.

[Francesc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta novela está escrita por muchas manos. Esas manos correspondían a los miembros del famoso "The Detection Club" que era un club formado por autores británicos que se reunían cada cierto tiempo para hablar de "sus cosas".
El planteamiento de la novela no está mal. Hay un asesinato de un almirante y el inspector Rudge es el investigador principal. Rudge es bastante minucioso y enseguida se va formando una idea general de los sospechosos.
El desarrollo de la trama no es la mejor, pero hay que darle mucho mérito porque debió ser muy difícil tener que continuar un relato donde otros lo habían dejado y juntar todas las piezas con sentido.
Una novela curiosa. Además, al final, los autores plantearon sus soluciones y es interesante leer sus conclusiones (algunas de ellas muy estrambóticas).
Hay que tener en cuenta que autores de mucho renombre como Dorothy L. Sayers o Agatha Christie escribieron en esta novela y Chesterton escribió el inicio.

----------------------------

This novel is written by many hands. Those hands corresponded to the members of the famous "The Detection Club" which was a club formed by British authors who met from time to time to talk about "their stuff".
The approach of the novel is not bad. There is a murder of an admiral and Inspector Rudge is the main investigator. Rudge is quite thorough and he quickly gets a general idea of the suspects.
The plot development is not the best, but you have to give it a lot of credit because it must have been very difficult to have to pick up a story where others had left off and put all the pieces together in a meaningful way.
A curious novel. Also, at the end, the authors came up with their solutions and it is interesting to read their conclusions (some of them very bizarre).
It should be noted that renowned authors such as Dorothy L. Sayers or Agatha Christie wrote in this novel and Chesterton wrote the beginning.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really did want to like this book a lot. First published in 1931, the premise of the novel is ingenious. Each chapter was written by a different member of the Detection Club, an association of British crime fiction writers. As Dorothy L Sayers explains in the introduction, the idea was that each writer tackled the mystery presented in the preceding chapters without knowing what solution the previous authors had in mind. The authors followed two rules: they had to construct their installment with a definite solution in view and they had to deal with all of the difficulties left for consideration in the preceding chapters. Each of the writers had to write their solution and deliver it to the pubisher when they handed in their manuscript. GK Chesterton's prologue was then written last, in order to tie the beginning of the novel to its ending.

It's an ingenious idea and it's easy to imagine what fun (and what problems) the various writers must have had devising their own installment. However, as a work of fiction it is not, in my view, entirely successful. There are several reasons for this. One is that the writers are not all equally skilled. Only three of them, GK Chesterton, Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie, would be familiar to modern readers. It is probably fair to say that the other contributors are not so well known because their writing is not particularly accomplished. Secondly, there is a wealth of detail in the novel, but little in the way of characterisation. Thirdly, the plot is simply not that engaging. To me, the most interesting parts of the book are Sayers' introduction and the different solutions envisaged by the authors, which are included in the volume after the final chapter. This does not make an enthralling mystery.

I've read this book while on holidays, generally at the end of a day filled with lots of activity. This means that my concentration span has not been what it is usually is. This may explain in part my lack of enthusiasm for the novel and my feeling that finishing it was a chore and not something to be wholeheartedly enjoyed. However, I don't think the circumstances under which I read the book wholly account for what I perceive to be its shortcomings.

Overall, I'm glad I read the novel because of its place in the history of British Golden Age crime fiction. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is not interested in the genre from a historical perspective.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Brett has written the foreward for this ingenious novel, as the President of the Detection Club in 2001, when the book was re-printed. The origins of the club are as shrouded in mystery as the members own work, although it was probably founded in 1928. As Brett points out, crime fiction has changed a lot since the days of Golden Age mysteries. A lot of books written in that time were, in a way, puzzles - with clues you could (supposedly) work out, and a great sense of fun. They were an intellectual challenge, in an era that adored parlour games and crossword puzzles.

In 1931, members of the club got together to write a book. The challenge was to write a chapter and send it to the next in line, for them to carry on. The authors were not permitted to 'cheat' and had to provide a solution to the crime, sealed in an envelope - which are all revealed at the end of the book in an Appendix. The plot is fairly typical of the time period - a body found floating in a boat, a confusion of tides, missing relatives, a long ago scandal, dinner parties at the Vicarage and talkative landladies! What makes the book great fun is the impression you get as your read on that each author is attempting to make the next in lines job more difficult! Clues abound, suspects line up and the victory of justice is assured. This is a wonderful book for crime lovers, especially those who enjoy those marvellous Golden Age authors. Also, it is a chance not only to sample well known authors such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers, but to sample the work of writers who perhaps are not so well read these days and who deserve to be.

The author's, in order are: C.K. Chesterton, Canon Victor L. Whitechurch, G.D.H and M. Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald A. Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane, and Anthony Berkeley. The solutions at the end of the novel are perhaps the most ingenious and enjoyable part of the whole book. It is a very enjoyable read and, you sense, great fun to write!

[İlkim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her şeyden önce ilginç bir okuma. Tam olarak kaç puan vereceğimi bilemedim 3.5'tan 4 demek istiyorum netice olarak. Çözümleme Kulübü isimli bir kulüp kuran dedektif öyküsü yazarları sırayla bölümler ekleyerek bir öykü yaratıyorlar. Ama bir önceki işi tam alevlenecekken kesiyor, diğeri bıraktığı yerden mantıklı bir kurgu kurarak devam ettiriyor. En son da Anthony Berkeley bütün metni toparlayıp finali yazıyor. Bölümlerin yazarları da birer mektupta kendi düşündükleri sonu yazıyor ve mühürleyip kulübe veriyorlar. Şimdi tahmin edersiniz ki bu kitap içinde Agatha Christie geçtiği için ilgimi çekiyor ve onun finali tam ondan beklediğim gibi bir şey. Öyle bitse fena olmazdı ama genel bitiş de güzel. Tek sorun birçok kişinin yazdığının anlaşılması, bana göre biraz tutarsızlık diyebileceğimiz faktörler var gibi geldi. Mesela ana karakterin ruh hali baya keskin dönüşler geçiriyor. Herkes hikayeye farklı bir gizem katmaya çalıştığı için de biraz karman çorman oluyor bazı yerler. Çoğu yazarın ve de muhtemelen sizin aklınıza gelen kişinin katil olma olasılığı biraz sırıtıyor ama bence final iyi. Sadece dediğim gibi dedektifin kişisel özellikleri bir öyle bir böyle gelecek bence size de. Ama yesyeni bir yayınevi sayılacak Üç Nokta'nın böyle önemli bir eseri bulup ve de Agatha çevirmeni Çiğdem Öztekin'e çevirtmesini bir hayli başarılı buldum.

[Suzannah Rowntree · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought The Detection Club was the best thing ever when I first heard of it--a club of Golden Age mystery authors that included Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers? with GK Chesterton himself as the president? but I had never heard of The Floating Admiral, which was a simply terrific idea: a detective novel written round-robin style by the entire Club, each member in turn being required to provide the next chapter of the story along with a sealed solution explaining the solution to the whole mystery. As an entertainment for the Club itself, it must have been pretty terrific. As a curiosity of detective fiction for the Golden-Age detective fan, it's also a great read.

The plot is pretty similar to every other detective story, with the exception that the last chapter goes on and on (and on) as the last poor author attempts to tie up all the loose ends. The subtle shifts in tone, characterisation, and so on, are all fun to watch as each new author steps in to continue the story. GK Chesterton himself contributed a Prologue to introduce the whole story, which is as brilliant and dreamlike as everything GKC wrote. Of the major contributors, Dorothy Sayers stood out as the best author. Ronald Knox, writer of the famous 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction, is an author I wasn't familiar with, whose chapter also seemed one of the better contributions. This book has whetted my interest, and I think I'll be looking up some more of his work in the future.

The solution of the mystery provided in the final chapter was pretty ingenious, though extremely complicated (as necessary considering the crazy clues). It was followed by the solutions which the authors were each required to provide, and I'm sorry now that I didn't read each author's solution immediately after his or her respective chapter, since they might have been more meaningful that way.

All in all, this was a fun read which introduced me to some new authors and stands for the future as a delightful record of one of the great literary clubs of the twentieth century.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a super fun read, not really so much for the sake of the story itself (which was good though not excellent), but because of how much I love the idea of a serially-written story collaborated on by good friends (some of whom happen to be among my best-loved fiction authors). It was so fascinating to see the different ways in which the various writers interpreted the clues, and the surprising twists and turns that the story took. Chesterton, Sayers, and Christie were definitely the most skilled among the bunch and not all the other contributions felt quite up to snuff -- which made the story feel a little disjointed -- but it was still a really enjoyable read.

(And it made me want to do something of the sort myself. I mean really, what a grand idea. The Detection Club itself, apart from any joint writing endeavors, sounds pretty heavenly. If only I was a brilliant British detective novelist with a host of similar friends. :D)

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton.
Imagine the great, classic authors of detective fiction playing a game. G.K. Chesterton writes the preface to a mystery. Then another author takes up his pen and writes the first chapter. Another writes the second chapter. Etc.
Nobody knows who did it. They have all their pet theories, of course. Each person writes down their guess to add to the end of the book along with an explanation about the clues they got and the clues they left. (My favorite line: "I am, frankly, in a complete muddle as to what has happened, and have tried to write a chapter that anyone can use to prove anything they like...")
The end result is, indeed, a complete muddle. And while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I would not recommend this as a mystery. It is no good guessing whodunnit when the answer quite literally depends on who is writing the chapter at the moment. While I admit I didn't see the twist coming in the final chapter, I can confidently say no one did but the author of that chapter. And it shows.
At the same time, what makes this book delightful is how each author's strengths and weaknesses shine through. They all start with basically the same characters. But a few adjectives here or there really make a difference. The wooden vicar of chapter 1 turns into a melodramatic but memorable side character in chapter 2. The any-man detective of the first three chapters gains a personality and hobby in chapter 4, only to turn into an inveterate follower of police procedure in chapter 5. Some chapters focus heavily on the unique personalities involved in the mystery. Others spend paragraphs organizing facts and clues.
The other aspect I enjoyed was reading through everyone's proposed solutions at the end of the mystery. Some authors spend pages accounting for every move by every character. Others try and guess what each author before them meant to do. And still others provide nothing more than a paragraph summarizing their best guess.
As a glimpse into the minds of various Golden Age detective authors and how they plotted, this was fun. Not much of a mystery but engaging despite the muddle.

[Kavita · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Detection Club was created by a bunch of British mystery authors, who got together to write this book, each one writing one chapter, carrying on from the previous one. The idea was floated by Anthony Berkeley. The authors included Canon Victor Whitechurch, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane, and Anthony Berkeley, while the prologue was written by G. K. Chesterton.

The story starts with the discovery of a dead admiral on a boat. He had been visiting the vicar the evening before with his niece, who lived with him. The narrative takes off from here and is written by the various authors, who fail to effectively blend into one voice. Milward Kennedy, especially, veered off into a very random direction, making it difficult for the story to get back on track. Every writer put in their own twists, giving full rein to their imagination. The chapter by Ronald Knox tries to bring it back together by raising a number of questions, but it just turns out to be a bit boring.

The conclusion is left to poor Anthony Berkeley, who I think is a fantastic writer. I must say he made a heroic effort, but the end was long-winded, extremely boring, and failed to keep up the tempo of the storytelling. None of it even made much sense by the time the last word was written, so Berkeley could have done a better job. But could he?!

At the end, every author gives their own solution for the mystery. I enjoyed Agatha Christie's solution the most, but thought that Dorothy Sayers had the best and most realistic solution that included all the points mentioned in the story. John Rhodes had a good ending as well.

It was an interesting experiment, for sure. But maybe they went a bit far in getting it published. Still very fascinating to see how these authors, who actually appear to have similar works, have such different thought processes when working together.

[Eon Windrunner · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

I enjoyed this one in terms of seeing what every author brought to the story, (and I may yet some of their solo efforts) but overall there were large parts that dragged and the story suffered for it. My hat off though to the author who wrote the final chapter and tied everything together in a neat bow.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review on my book blog: http://quirkyreader.livejournal.com/2...

[Gintautas Ivanickas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apie „The Detection Club“ jau rašiau (žr. apžvalgą – Six Against the Yard“). Šįsyk dar vienas jų literatūrinis žaidimas. Taisyklės kitos – vienas po kito autoriai rašo po vieną skyrių. Žinodami tik tai, kas parašyta iki jų. Sukdami tyrimą tenlink, kur jiems atrodo teisinga. O parašę savo skyrių, dar parašo, kaip, jų nuomone, viskas vystysis toliau, ir tą prognozę atiduoda užklijuotame voke, kuris bus atplėštas tik po to, kai paskutinė, finalinė dalis bus parašyta.
Aišku, kai tiek autorių, kai nė vienas nežino prieš tai rašiusio užmanymo, tyrimas sukinėjasi kaip vėtrungės rodyklė, apauga vis naujomis aplinkybėmis, tampa vis labiau ir labiau užnarpliotas. Ir didžiulė pagarba Anthony Berkeley, kuriam teko paskutinis skyrius. Ir krenkšdamas, stenėdamas, bet jis vis dėlto sugebėjo surišti visas gijas į vieną logišką sprendimą. Juolab, kad kaip savo „sprendimo voke“ rašė priešpaskutinio skyriaus autorė Clemence Dane: „Atvirai kalbant, aš visiškai susipainiojau tame, kas vyksta, tad tiesiog pasistengiau parašyti skyrių, kurį kiekvienas galės panaudoti, norėdamas įrodyti, ką tik nori“.
Pasakojimas netikėtai gavosi visai įdomus. Kai jau viskas buvo parašyta, G.K. Chestertonas dar prirašė prologą, taip kiek sustiprindamas bendrąją (tiksliau, tapusią tokia, tyrimo liniją). O pabaigoje sudėti tai, kas buvo bene įdomiausia – „sprendimo vokai“. O, kokios įvairovės ten besama! Pradedu galvoti, kad bene įdomiausias literatūrinis žaidimas būtų toks – duoti užuomazgą, nužudymą, jo aplinkybes, o tada kiekvienas toliau rašytų pabaigą. Ir gautume tiek detektyvų, kiek yra autorių. Vienoda pradžia, bet užtat su kiek skirtingų sprendimų. :)
Kaip literatūrinis kūrinys – gal trejetui. Kaip už žaidimą (ypač už „sprendimo vokus“), negaila ir penkių. Tai tebūnie bendrai – keturi iš penkių.

[Ramazan Atlen · Rating 4 out of 5]

1930’lu yıllarda Britanya’da Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Anthony Berkeley gibi dedektif romanı yazarları dedektif öykülerini daha mükemmel hale getirmek gibi bir amaçla Çözüm Kulübü adında bir polisiye yazarları birliği kurarlar. ‘Whyn Nehri Cinayeti’ işte bu kulübün 12 üyesinin hazırladığı bir altın çağ polisiyesi.

Emekli Amiral Penistone, bir sahil kasabası yakınlarındaki Whyn Nehri’nde, sürüklenen bir sandalın içinde göğsünden bıçaklanmış halde bulunur. Amiral Penistone kasaba yakınlarındaki bir malikâneye bir ay önce taşınmış ve vasisi olduğu yeğeniyle birlikte yaşamaktadır. Bir gün önce yeğeniyle yakınlardaki bir rahibin evini ziyarete gitmiş, en son ziyaretten dönerken görülmüştür. Olayı Müfettiş Rudge soruşturmaya başlar. Amiralin ölü bulunduğu sandalda neden rahibin şapkası kalmıştır? Ölü amiralin cebinden çıkan gazetenin sırrı nedir? Amiralin yeğeni ziyaret gecesi giydiği kıyafetleri neden saklamıştır? Amiralin ölümünün yeğeninin evlilik ihtimaliyle ilgisi var mıdır?

Kitabın her bölümü farklı bir yazar tarafından kaleme alınmış. Kendilerinden önceki yazarın kafasında nasıl bir çözüm olduğunu bilmeyen yazarlardan bırakılan ipuçlarına sadık kalmaları ve olaya yeni ipuçları ekleseler de hikâyeyi içinden çıkılması imkânsız hale getirmekten kaçınmaları istenmiş. Her yazar kendi bölümünü kafasındaki çözüme göre kurgulayıp yazmış. Dolayısıyla roman ilerledikçe ipuçları giderek çoğaldığı için son bölümleri yazan yazarların işi daha da zorlaşmış.

Bu yönüyle yazım süreci açısından oldukça farklı ve deneysel bir roman olan Whyn Nehri Cinayeti’nde yazarların muamma hakkında yazdıkları kendi çözümleri de romanın sonuna eklenmiş. Ben romanı okurken her bölüm bittiğinde o bölümün yazarının hikâyenin gerisi hakkında kendi kafasında oluşturduğu kurguyu ve çözümü hemen okumayı tercih ettim. Aralarından da en çok Agatha Christie’nin ve Henry Wade’in çözümünü beğendim. Çünkü bu çözümler diğerlerine göre daha sade ve daha çarpıcıydı. Aslında dikkatli bakılırsa neden o dönemin yazarları arasından günümüze kalan ismin Agatha Christie olduğuna dair kitap çok şey söylüyor. Bana göre diğer yazarlar gereğinden fazla ayrıntılarla anlatımı boğuyorlar. Oysa yalnızca on sayfayı kaplayan kendi bölümünde Christie sade bir üslup kullanıp birkaç ilginç ipucu eklemekle yetinmiş. Katil kim polisiyelerinde amaç katilin sürpriz kimliğinin mantıklı ama aşırı karmaşık olmayan bir biçimde açıklanmasıdır. Örneğin başka bir yazar gereksiz yere müfettişin not defterini açarken parmağını ıslatmayı ihmal etmediğini yazabilirken Christie bu tür amaca hizmet etmeyen hiçbir şeyle ilgilenmiyor. Başarısının sırrı burada olmalı.

Sonuç olarak, Whyn Nehri Cinayeti yazarların belli bir hikâyeyi geliştirip sonuca bağlama konusundaki farklı yaklaşımlarına şahit olma imkanı tanıyan iyi bir polisiye.

[Dorothea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Members of "The Detection Club" (Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, Canon Victor L. Whitechurch, G.D.H. and M. Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Ronald A. Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane, Anthony Berkeley) decided to write a mystery novel together, each writing one chapter, and knowing no more about the solution than previous writers had suggested in their own preceding chapters.

I think this must have been lots of fun for the Detection Club, but it resulted in a rather tiresome experience for this reader!

In her introduction, Sayers notes that "the problem was made to approach as closely as possible to a problem of real detection," as a contrast to the ordinary situation of a mystery novelist, who "knows beforehand who did the job."

It may be the fault of this realism, or it may be the fault of novelists who, having only one chapter to contribute but a whole novel's worth of clues and shocking revelations in mind, failed to restrain themselves. Probably both -- anyway The Floating Admiral is not at all a good novel. There are too many characters and too many clues, made to seem important by the contributors who planned their own solution to the mystery, but sunk back into triviality by later contributors with different solutions. It is horribly lacking in Aristotelian unity.

I almost didn't read this novel at all, although my curiosity about Sayers' contribution (which I think is the best chapter, although who knows what I'd think if I hadn't know which one she wrote) finally drove me to it. My initial reluctance came from G.K. Chesterton's prologue (he didn't play the game, but wrote this prologue afterwards). I began reading The Floating Admiral while reading lunch and had to stop in the second paragraph of Chesterton's prologue, because it was ruining my appetite.

Someday I'm going to write more about G.K. Chesterton, but let me just say for now that racism was part of his metaphysics. In this case, he chose to write his prologue about a scene from one of the characters' history, that occurred in China. So in this second paragraph there's a flight of very Chestertonian rhetoric about the East and West and how the East is all things opposed to goodness and Christianity and Western. I am not quoting because I never want to read that passage again. I will say that if you are still interested in reading The Floating Admiral, you can skip the entire prologue. The only thing it establishes is that the episode in Hong Kong was important, and you'll find this out again later. I suppose it also had the effect of helping the book sell better because of Chesterton's name among the authors.

[Andree · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of this was fun, the execution was perhaps less so.

Essentially, a bunch of golden age mystery authors got together and wrote a mystery novel, one author writing one chapter at a time. They also all provide their solutions at the end.

The result is kind of fun, but also seriously disjointed. Some people seem to be just throwing in ridiculous twists for the sake of ridiculous twists. I was more charmed by the idea than the novel itself.

A few things of note:
- Christie's prose stands out, as does Sayers' (though perhaps slightly less so). I would also say that Christie's ending is pointed out in the introduction as being particularly good, and I would definitely agree with that. Sayers and Christie do contrast with some other authors, many of them lesser known, whose prose felt laboured or affected when I got to their chapters. They were certainly less readable. Not everyone - some other authors were good - but I didn't keep track as I was going, and I'm not going to name names. I would just note that it is perhaps not surprising that Sayers and Christie are among the most enduring authors on this list (with Chesterton being next - his chatper was also good, but incredibly early)
- As a sort of indication of how convoluted the plot kind of went, while most people proposed similar solutions, the final author did have a 60 page chapter to tie up loose ends. The book itself was 260 pages, so y'know, basically a quarter of the overall length. (I would also argue the ending is... not the most engaging I've read).
-The number of people who spent time in a very specific part of China at a very specific time, and ended up in this small village in England is ridiculous.
- Similarly, almost everyone assumed that the disappeared French maid and the long absent Vicar's wife were one and the same. (Both these characters are revealed early). I can't help wishing there'd a been a twist at the end proving otherwise, if only for reasons of, there are really quite a lot of women living in the world, not just like six.

Honestly, I'd give this a pass.

[Susan in NC · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - interesting joint effort by the Detection Club. I mostly listened to the audiobook, only turning to the ebook when it got into the weeds with train timetables and information about the tides.

I’ve never been a fan of the overly elaborate mystery puzzle, and found it interesting that the chapters that lost my interest were by unsatisfactory authors we’ve previously read in our (the Reading the Detectives group) Detection Club challenges, or I had come across in short story collections. I didn’t appreciate their writing style then, and I still don’t! No surprise, one of the most entertaining chapters for me was Agatha Christie’s section, where Inspector Rudge interviews the biggest gossip in town to get more information on the suspects. Each of the authors added their alternative takes on the solution in the appendix; just as I don’t have much interest in droning mystery conclusions, I lost interest after reading the first couple offerings - I mostly wanted to read Christie’s take, as I knew it would be most interesting for me!

I’m glad I finally read this classic, I thought it was fairly entertaining, and found Inspector Rudge a diligent, clever, and sensible detective. Some of the plot elements seemed unnecessarily complex for my taste, but with this many Golden Age authors involved, I guess that’s no surprise!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Floating Admiral is a detective novel written in 1931 by everybody. OK, not everybody, but at lot of people, fourteen of them. They were all members of the Detection Club, before I write about the book, of course I have to write about the club. I have been looking for this book a long time because it sounded so interesting, the idea anyway. On to the club.

The Detection Club was formed in 1930 by a group of British mystery writers, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, Hugh Walpole, John Rhode, Jessie Rickard, Baroness Emma Orczy, R. Austin Freeman, G. D. H. Cole, Margaret Cole, E. C. Bentley, Henry Wade, and H. C. Bailey. Anthony Berkeley was instrumental in setting up the club, and the first president was G. K. Chesterton. There was a fanciful initiation ritual with an oath probably written by either Chesterton or Sayers, and the club held regular dinner meetings in London. If you don't know who all those people are that's fine, neither do I. People like, Ronald Knox, Arthur Morrison, John Rhode, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole among others, I've never heard of before, but apparently they were good enough mystery writers to make it into the club. Ok, more about the club,

In addition to meeting for dinners and helping each other with technical aspects in their individual writings, the members of the club agreed to adhere to Knox's Commandments in their writing to give the reader a fair chance at guessing the guilty party. These fair-play "rules" were summarized by one of the members, Ronald Knox, in an introduction to an anthology of detective stories. They were never intended as more than guidelines, and not all the members took them seriously. The first American member (though then living in the UK) was John Dickson Carr, elected in 1936. And here's the oath:

Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God? I wonder if the author who had the person killed by a circus bear could have made it into the club, is that an Act of God? I still consider that the dumbest ending of any book I've ever read. This club is still around, the current president is Martin Edwards. I don't know who that is, though. (Sorry Mr. Edwards if you're out there.) Don't worry, I'm getting to the book. A number of works were published under the club's sponsorship; most of these were written by more than one member of the club, lots more usually, each contributing one or more chapters in turn. In the case of The Floating Admiral, each author also provided a sealed "solution" to the mystery as he or she had written it, including the previous chapters. This was done to prevent a writer from adding impossible complications with no reasonable solution in mind. The various partial solutions were published as part of the final book. I don't know if any of the other books did that, it took me years to come across this book so I doubt I'll ever see another one.

The twelve chapters of the story were each written by a different author, in the following order: Canon Victor Whitechurch (never heard of him), G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole (same here), Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane and Anthony Berkeley. G. K. Chesterton contributed a Prologue, which was written after the novel had been. I just realized there are more people I don't know than I do.

The book begins with an introduction by Dorothy Sayers in which she says:

"When members of the official police force are invited to express an opinion about the great detectives of fiction, they usually say with a kindly smile: 'Well, of course, it's not the same for them as it is for us. The author knows beforehand who did the job, and the great detective has only to pick up the clues that are laid down for him. It's wonderful,' they indulgently add, 'the clever ideas these authors hit upon, but we don't think they would work very well in real life.'

There is probably much truth in these observations, and they are, in any case, difficult to confute. If Mr. John Rhode, for example, could be induced to commit a real murder by one of the ingeniously simple methods he so easily invents in fiction, and if Mr. Freeman Wills Crofts, say, would undertake to pursue him, Bradshaw in hand, from Stranraer to Saint Juan-les-Pins, then, indeed, we might put the matter to the test. But writers of detective fiction are, as a rule, not bloodthirsty people. They avoid physical violence, for two reasons: first, because their murderous feelings are so efficiently blown-off in print as to have little energy left for boiling up in action, and secondly, because they are so accustomed to the idea that murders are made to be detected that they feel a wholesome reluctance to put their criminal theories into practice. While, as for doing real detecting, the fact is that few of them have the time for it, being engaged in earning their bread and butter like reasonable citizens, unblessed with the ample leisure of a Wimsey or a Father Brown."

And so their came the Detection Club, and The Floating Admiral, which Dorothy Sayers says is their detection game on paper. The two rules for the game were that each writer must construct his or her installment with a definite solution in view - that is, he must not introduce new complications merely "to make it more difficult." He must be ready, if called upon, to explain his own clues coherently and plausibly, each writer must also provide their own proposed solution of the mystery. Secondly, each writer had to deal faithfully with all difficulties left for his consideration by the previous writer. He or she could not just dismiss them as an accident or give an answer that is inconsistent with the story. She goes on to say that they were both surprised to find what the other authors came up with. She says that while she was plunged into bewilderment over what she received by Mr. Milward Kennedy, she was baffled at what Father Ronald Knox came up with when she gave the manuscript to him, seeing him come up with something totally different than she was thinking of. And finally it gets passed down and finished by Anthony Berkeley in a chapter he titled, "Clearing Up The Mess."

As for the plot, it was interesting. It was interesting to see how the plot changed from chapter to chapter as we changed author to author, and you could tell how it changed. One writer would have me going down one path, then we begin the next chapter and it was like going down a totally different road. And as for what was going on, well on a drifted boat, the body of Admiral Penistone is found, which makes the title totally make sense. Last night, he had dinner with his niece in the house of the vicar, they came in their boat, and they leave in their boat. However, the boat on which the admiral is found is not his boat, it is owned by the vicar. Just in case you're wondering, almost everyone in the book has a boat. The admiral was stabbed by a knife or a dagger, but there is no blood on the floor leading our detective who is also our main character, him and the admiral, believing the dead guy wasn't killed in a boat at all. Furthermore, the mooring line has been cut twice. They made a big deal out of that, they were much more impressed about that than I was. And then there was the newspaper, we can't forget the newspaper, at least half the writers couldn't forget it, the other half weren't all that interested in it. There is a flower in the boat too, that doesn't come into it until later though, but keep it in mind, three or four of the writers had to do something with it. Things changed as the book went on, there was Elma Holland, in the first chapter she is described as a young woman, about thirty or a few years above that age, but she isn't beautiful, in fact as Inspector Rudge tells us, she is just plain ugly. But then, she becomes beautiful when she "fixes" herself up, a few chapters later one of our characters is madly in love with her and she is beautiful by then. And that's how things change. After a while there is a missing brother, a missing wife, a secret love affair, a person set up for a crime he didn't commit, the real criminal, or criminals. That's what makes it interesting, the way each author changes the story, it's also what makes it annoying and hard to enjoy because it's impossible to figure out the crime yourself since the crime and all around it changes every chapter. I'm glad I read it, but I won't read it again. On to the next book. Happy reading.

[Aylin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whyn Nehri Cinayeti; 1930 'lu yıllarda kurulduğu düşünülen ve dedektif romanı yazarlarından oluşan Çözümleme Kulübü (The Detection Club) tarafından ilgi çekici bir üslupla yazılan,edebi bir oyun olarak karşımıza çıkıyor. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gilbert K. Chesterton ve Anthony Berkeley gibi isimlerin bulunduğu 13 polisiye yazarı; gizemli bir cinayet öyküsünü,her biri kendi anlatım tarzı ile bir bölüm yazarak, ilmek ilmek ortaya çıkarıyor. Yazarlar önceki bölümde verilen ipuçlarını işleyerek, sorgulamalar ve geçmişe dair akıl yürütmelerin ön planda olduğu, neden sonuç ilişkilerinin irdelendiği bir gizem öyküsünü parça parça geliştirerek bütüne ulaşıyor.Tüm verileri sorgulayarak ipuçlarını birleştiren Anthony Berkeley'in yazdığı sonuç bölümünden farklı olarak, ekler kısmında 9 yazarın çözüme dair yazdığı fikirleri de dikkat çeken öğelerden.

Neddy Ware, her sabah balık avlamaya çıktığı Whyn Nehri'nde bir sandalın sürüklendiğini görür. Sandalın içinde kalbinden bıçaklanarak öldürülmüş kişi; Whynmount'a bir ay önce taşınan Amiral Penistone'dur. Soruşturmaya atanan Müfettiş Rudge sandalın bölgenin rahibine ait olduğunu, Amiralin cinayet gecesi rahibin misafiri olduğunu öğrenir. Aynı zamanda Hong Kong'ta gemi komutanlığı sırasında yaşadığı skandal da geçmişin karanlık dehlizlerinde kaybolmuştur. Müfettiş Rudge ipuçlarını akıl yürütmeler ve sorgulamalar, yeni sorulara sebep olan sorularla birleştirecek bu gizemli olay örgüsüne anlam verecektir.

Hikayenin,her yazar ile birlikte yeni bir dönemeç alması, farklı zihinlerin bakış açılarının; karakterlerde ve olay örgüsünde kendini göstermesi dikkat çekici olduğu kadar, zihinsel karmaşa yaratan bir yapıya da neden oluyor. Her yeni eklenen karakter, geçmişe yönelik çıkarım ve eşlik eden farklı bir ipucu düzenli bir akışın önüne geçiyor olsa da özgün fikirlerle yaratıldığını düşündüğüm bu kitabı keyifle okudum. Akıl yürütmelerin, tahminlerin ve neden sonuç ilişkilerinin başrol oynadığı dedektif öykülerini sevenler tercih edebilirler.

[Amelia Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

thoroughly enjoyed this, my first charity shop book purchase and an absolute bargain so really despite what was written inside it probably would have been given 4 stars anyways. a different author wrote each chapter which i think is a pretty cool concept, and it actually worked well. it was a pleasure to read if i’m honest…..had just the right amount of murder and latent hostility sprinkled in here and there⚰️🚣‍♂️🗡🤕 go read it.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admiral Penistone's body is found early one morning floating on the river. He has been stabbed to the heart and is adrift in the Vicar's boat. The previous evening he and his niece dined at the Vicar's, but they had used the Admiral's own boat to cross the river and return home. Why was the body found in the Vicar's boat? And where was he originally killed--for there are no blood stains at all in the bottom of the craft. Inspector Rudge is called in to discover whodunnit and why but runs across a myriad of half-truths, cover-ups, and missing witnesses. The Vicar obviously knows more than he's telling as do the niece and her fiance. Then it seems like everyone disappears on mysterious missions to London--the Vicar, the niece Elma, her fiance, and Sir Wilfred Denny, a neighbor who doesn't seem at first to have much to do with the crime at all. Who is the mysterious woman seen in the area on the night of murder and where has she gone? Why did Elma's French maid leave without collecting her final pay? Then there are the clues: an overcoat worn on a warm night, a second copy of a newspaper, a missing bit of the boat's mooring line, a secret file marked "X," and a missing weapon. Rudge has many (too many it seems to him) lines to follow and none of them seem to be leading anywhere definite. But he will get is man/woman in the end.

One of the first (if not the very first) collaborative detective novels written round-robin style among a group of detective novelists. Fourteen members of the The Detective Club settled down to tackle the mystery story. Each wrote a chapter after being presented with previous chapters from their colleagues and they were tasked with adding to (or in the case of Anthony Berkeley, presenting the solution to) the story without knowing what solution their predecessor/s had in mind. To ensure fair play (no adding things just make it more difficult), each author beyond the initial "setting the stage" chapters were also required to present their own solution to the crime based on the information given so far--including their own chapter.

I could tell while reading this that the club members had a great deal of fun with this. And it was great fun for this reader to watch them playing the game with each other. It understandably is not as smoothly written as it would have been had just one of them put the story together, but it works very well as a collaborative effort. Each author's style seeps in, but overall they manage to keep the tone and characters all of piece. I enjoyed this thoroughly when I first read it back in the 80s and I found it just as engaging reading it now.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review available at warmdayswillnevercease.wordpress.com

The Floating Admiral is a collaborative detective novel written by fourteen members of the Detection Club. Each of the twelve chapters of the story was each written by a different author, leaving G.K. Chesterton to write an incomprehensible prologue and Anthony Berkeley to attempt to tie up all of the loose ends, of which there were many, at the conclusion of the book. In addition to all of this, each of the authors provided their own solution in a sealed envelope which appeared at the end of the book.

I loved the concept of this novel and I really wanted to enjoy it but I'm not going to lie, it was an incoherent mess. The plot and characters are really inconsistent, probably because each author featured in the book wrote them in a vastly different way to the previous one, and there was no real conclusion to the case. I didn't feel any more enlightened after reading each author's solution to the case - although Agatha Christie's was an interesting conclusion - because they were contradictory too. I just didn't enjoy it and my reading notes were as incoherent as the book itself so I'm not sure that this is going to be a good review.

I didn't particularly enjoy the opening chapters by Canon Victor Whitechurch and G. D. H. Cole & Margaret Cole. They were dull and I didn't like the writing style of either. I didn't like the chapters by Milward Kennedy or Freeman Wills Crofts either. Kennedy just made Rudge, the detective, really incompetent and bloody annoying whereas Crofts' chapter was just confusing. My only note for Crofts' chapter is '???' which was super helpful when I came to write up this review. I had no idea what was going on.

I did really enjoy the chapters by Agatha Christie, John Rhode, and Ronald A. Knox but every time I started to like the book I was faced with another chapter that I disliked or didn't quite understand. Christie's chapter was probably the most entertaining in the book which wasn't a difficult feat compared to some of the other chapters. Knox's chapter was really useful because it summed up the plot so far in a sort of diary-style where Rudge was going through his findings but, after that, I just got lost in the plot again. It was a really frustrating experience to read this book.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this at all. I don't know what else to say except that the concept was interesting but poorly executed. I wanted to enjoy it, and I may have done if it had been more consistent and cohesive, but I didn't.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ingenious idea for a story with some chapters more unusual than others depending on the authors. I liked how most authors offered their own solutions at the end and am especially fond of Agatha Christie's suggested solution (although I am biased), which shows she had class and imagination.

It was great to see how each author dealt with the difficulties and intricacies paid down by the previous author. I do wonder if any of the authors deliberately created impossible situations to challenge their peers.

The character development was interesting, for example Inspector Rudge was forward thinking and intelligent in some chapters but in others, he was portrayed as a dumb policeman who could not see the wood for the trees.

I actully learned quite a bit about boats from this story which is a sign of a quality book when it interests you enough to do external research.

[Leonor Borges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um policial escrito, de forma colaborativa, pelos membros do The Detection Club, em 1931, clube esse de que fazem parte alguns dos mais importantes autores ingleses de policiais.
Muito bem escrito, é um policial à moda antiga...
Com o bónus das várias ideias para a identificação e resolução do mistério da morte, que cada autor dos capítulos tem de deixar escrito,serem apresentadas no fim.
Vale a pena ler

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea to write with several writers a story, each following the former one is great. I enjoyed also recoginizing the specifics, especially of the well known authors.
Sadly, in the great idea, there is also weakness. The different parts are very uneven and some are not so good at all. And on a certain level, there is no feeling os a story, but one of lots of small elements.

[Prashiie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are only too much accustomed to let the great detective say airily: ‘Cannot you see, my dear Watson, that these facts admit of only one interpretation?’ After our experience in the matter of The Floating Admiral, our great detectives may have to learn to express themselves more guardedly.”

I chose this book without having any background information. It was part of the books written by Agatha Christie. But after a quick Google search, I found out how this book came to be and that got me excited!

This is a book written in a joint effort, each chapter written by a different author taking in all the information his/her predecessor has left and using it to continue the story coherently. They did a great job, especially Anthony Berkeley who had to write the last chapter and he humorously called it “Clearing up the mess”. It was a little difficult to get used to a different writing style every chapter. Agatha Christie’s writing style is familiar to me and I’m happy to have had the chance of finding other great authors, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Henry Wade, Ronald A. Knox, and Milward Kennedy. Freeman Wills Crofts’s writing, however, was not to my liking. He writes more like an observer and most of the conversations that the characters have are written in a descriptive manner. There were very few dialogues present in his chapter and I missed that.

Overall, it was fun to read this book. Though, I have to admit that I didn’t care for the confusing details about boats. The story itself was also a little confusing at times because we have one author planting a seed of thought in your brain that just gets thrown out by the next author because they have a different theory in mind. For example, early in the story there are hints of Elma being a man and I liked that theory! Imagine Elma actually being Walter who is trying to get his inheritance. But unfortunately this line of thought did not survive for too long. It was nice to see that Agatha Christie had the same idea, which brings me to the appendix. In the appendix you can find what plausible solution to this mystery each author had in mind. Clemence Dane’s theory was amusing, I like that he admits he has no idea what’s going on.
“I am, frankly, in a complete muddle as to what has happened.”

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thirty-nine...

While out fishing on the local river, Neddy Ware sees a rowing boat floating upstream on the tide. He manages to hook it and bring it to the bank, where he discovers it contains a dead body. Admiral Penistone, the corpse, is a newcomer to the area so no one knows much about him or his niece, Elma, who lives with him. It’s up to Inspector Rudge to find out who could have had a motive to kill him. He’ll be helped or hindered in his investigation by the eleven Golden Age mystery writers, all members of the Detection Club, who wrote this mystery, one chapter each and then forwarding it on to the next author to add their chapter, with no collusion as to the solution. Some of the true greats are here, like Christie and Sayers, and lots of others who have been having a renaissance in the recent splurge of vintage re-releases.

Lovely idea. I fear I found it a total flop. The first several writers repeat each other ad nauseam, each adding a few more clues or red herrings as they go. Poor Rudge never gets a chance to investigate anything, since each new writer wheels him around and sends him off in a different direction. I was determined to persevere, mainly because it has inexplicably high ratings on Goodreads, but by halfway through I was losing the will to live. Then Ronald Knox decided to use his chapter to list thirty-nine questions arising from the previous chapters, all of which needed to be answered before we could arrive at the solution. Thirty-nine! I gave up. I tried flicking forward to the last chapter as I usually do when abandoning a book mid-stream, only to discover the last chapter is about novella-length (unsurprisingly, really, since I suppose it has to address those thirty-nine questions plus any more that had been added in the second half). I asked myself if I would be able to sleep at night without ever discovering who killed the Admiral, and while pondering that question quietly dozed off, which I felt was a fairly effective answer. I also tried reading the various other solutions from some of the other authors which are given as an appendix, but the first couple were so ludicrous I gave up. Clearly many people have enjoyed this, but for the life of me I can’t understand why. Oh well!

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't my favorite mystery ever to read, but the concept is so fun: a group of classic mystery writers each writing one chapter of the story in turn, where each author is completely in the dark about the intentions of the prior ones. It's murder improv! In practice, this resulted (not unexpectedly) in some convolutions of plot and some inconsistencies in character. The bright side was getting to witness everyone passive aggressively swiping at each other's logic via the exposition. (Inspector Rudge wakes up at the beginning of a new chapter and wonders how he could possibly have forgotten to do x this whole time, etc.) That was great, but still, if the book had ended with the traditional unraveling of the mystery and arrest/suicide of the culprit, I probably would have given it three stars.

But it didn't end there! We also get an appendix revealing the solutions each author devised to account for all of the clues at the time of their writing. These were an unholy delight. Dorothy L. Sayers' solution is 18 times longer than anyone else's, scrupulously accounting for every detail with references and timelines, because of course it is. And of course, Ronald A. Knox, who came next, wished he didn't have to follow her. (I wouldn't want to, either.) Agatha Christie's imagined twist was so entertainingly implausible that I kind of wish it had come off. Clemence Dane went second to last and admitted herself completely in a muddle by the time the story got to her, and honestly, that's fair. It was all just a wonderful look into everyone's writing processes, their research into real-world facts, and what they considered valuable to focus on.

All in all, I recommend this for committed fans of golden age murder mysteries, not as a first foray into the genre. But if you are a fan, and you know something of the authors' styles and the rules of the detection club, you'll find something to enjoy!

[Fanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

April 7, 2020: I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It definitely has a more complicated yet satisfactory closure to the mystery. Twelve different detective writers penning twelve different chapters had me sceptical when I picked it up but everyone does a really good job! Except for a a chapter or two that was stretched far too long. The appendix where every author recounts their initial ideas of who the murderer would be was an excellent addition. Loved reading it as part of the Classic N Christie Book Club!