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cardica's review against another edition
2.0
Coming in 12th place, our least recommended novel for the year is [b:The Floating Admiral|719399|The Floating Admiral|The Detection Club|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1324235251l/719399._SY75_.jpg|2742444]. A short affair written by some of history’s most illustrious detective fiction authors, The Floating Admiral is a good experiment long, long before it is a good story. The question is - is it still worth reading?
Featuring the writings of [a:Agatha Christie|123715|Agatha Christie|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1589991473p2/123715.jpg], [a:G.K. Chesterton|7014283|G.K. Chesterton|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1365860649p2/7014283.jpg], [a:Dorothy L. Sayers|8734|Dorothy L. Sayers|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1519840173p2/8734.jpg], and more, including our dearly beloved Father [a:Ronald Knox|8178205|Ronald Knox|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1559138706p2/8178205.jpg], the Floating Admiral was a dinner party experiment for Christie and her 13 friends to see if they could write a novel with no planned ending, one chapter at a time, as each author passed the buck to the other with no explanation other than what was on the page before them. Only the final chapter and the prologue were written with the full context of the story, and each author was challenged to write their solution in a sealed envelope, printed at the back of the book.
The solutions section of the book is really the best part, too. From wildly absurd solutions by Agatha Christie (whose solution, is definitely not worth the price of admission, despite what some reviewers might tell you), to clinically cold breakdowns of the manner of the problem itself by Ronald Knox, the solutions feel like a crime-fiction horoscope, and whichever one you end up aligning yourself with could point you in the direction of the next author you should check out.
[a:The Detection Club|93130|The Detection Club|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] remains to this day one of the great institutions of British crime fiction writing. Founded by [a:Anthony Berkeley|246785|Anthony Berkeley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1408927615p2/246785.jpg] in 1928, it began as informal dinners between the greats of detective fiction until its 1932 charter seated GK Chesterton as the first chairman. The Floating Admiral is the first of a number of pass-the-buck stories by the early detection club, each a variation on the same experiment. The greatest strength of the novel is that if you’re into mystery fiction, it’s a fantastic demonstration on how different the solutions to one single mystery can be, proving that in such a situation there is no ‘one answer’ to hunt for. While that thesis might be short-sighted given how atypical this novel is, there’s still a great value to seeing all these great minds approaching the same problem in such varied ways.
The story itself sits on the very edge of forgettable. While there are moments of greatness, they each feel so disconnected and ordinary as a part of the whole that the only thing I remembered months after reading it was the final twist. Our Detective Inspector Rudge being the prime example. After the great Admiral Penistone is found dead in a boat along his hometown river, Rudge is called in to solve the murder and somehow manages to have so little character that Ronald Knox’s chapter opens by bemoaning his blandness in character. As we trapse from clue to clue, author to author, the momentum of the story is kept up by juicy clues left at the end of each chapter, many of which are abandoned in due course. Despite setting out with the goal that ‘no author shall unnecessarily complicate matters’, each author seems to ridicule clues left by their predecessors, choosing to introduce new problems that in turn become points of ridicule until the conclusion has so many clues to cherry pick from that you could build an entire franchise of endings from (which, mind you, is exactly what you’ll find after the ending, so maybe it worked as intended).
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the narrative is looking at how it twists and turns from author to author - after the entire introduction was staged in Hong Kong, it takes 5 chapters for the story to even mention it again, and as long as you know what you’re getting into, it’s an excellent game trying to piece together where the ideas in the story were first introduced, as you barrel towards Anthony Berkeley’s final chapter, which itself is nearly a third the length of the book to ensure it can adequately clean up the mess the other authors made.
Full of old stereotypes and innumerable clues that are just wasted ink in your notepad, the story hasn’t aged well, unless you are thoroughly and entirely invested in its premise. It’s a shame too, because I think if the book had been done in two passes - one to outline the narrative and pose solutions, and the other to write it, the result would have been infinitely stronger, without entirely undermining the premise. Fortunately the modern detection club is around to give it another whack with the spiritual successor “[b:The Sinking Admiral|27881737|The Sinking Admiral|The Detection Club|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459724098l/27881737._SY75_.jpg|47876033]”, but the truth is that “The Floating Admiral” is a book for mystery fiction nerds and academics. You won’t regret reading it, but it never quite feels the same spark that each author had on their own, so you’d really be better of just sinking, or floating, as the case may be, into one of their other works.
I give this book 1 insurmountable detective fiction author out of 14. It’s an entirely missable book but I genuinely hope it’s not forgotten by history. You can catch our full thoughts on the book over on Death of the Reader.
Featuring the writings of [a:Agatha Christie|123715|Agatha Christie|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1589991473p2/123715.jpg], [a:G.K. Chesterton|7014283|G.K. Chesterton|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1365860649p2/7014283.jpg], [a:Dorothy L. Sayers|8734|Dorothy L. Sayers|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1519840173p2/8734.jpg], and more, including our dearly beloved Father [a:Ronald Knox|8178205|Ronald Knox|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1559138706p2/8178205.jpg], the Floating Admiral was a dinner party experiment for Christie and her 13 friends to see if they could write a novel with no planned ending, one chapter at a time, as each author passed the buck to the other with no explanation other than what was on the page before them. Only the final chapter and the prologue were written with the full context of the story, and each author was challenged to write their solution in a sealed envelope, printed at the back of the book.
The solutions section of the book is really the best part, too. From wildly absurd solutions by Agatha Christie (whose solution, is definitely not worth the price of admission, despite what some reviewers might tell you), to clinically cold breakdowns of the manner of the problem itself by Ronald Knox, the solutions feel like a crime-fiction horoscope, and whichever one you end up aligning yourself with could point you in the direction of the next author you should check out.
[a:The Detection Club|93130|The Detection Club|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] remains to this day one of the great institutions of British crime fiction writing. Founded by [a:Anthony Berkeley|246785|Anthony Berkeley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1408927615p2/246785.jpg] in 1928, it began as informal dinners between the greats of detective fiction until its 1932 charter seated GK Chesterton as the first chairman. The Floating Admiral is the first of a number of pass-the-buck stories by the early detection club, each a variation on the same experiment. The greatest strength of the novel is that if you’re into mystery fiction, it’s a fantastic demonstration on how different the solutions to one single mystery can be, proving that in such a situation there is no ‘one answer’ to hunt for. While that thesis might be short-sighted given how atypical this novel is, there’s still a great value to seeing all these great minds approaching the same problem in such varied ways.
The story itself sits on the very edge of forgettable. While there are moments of greatness, they each feel so disconnected and ordinary as a part of the whole that the only thing I remembered months after reading it was the final twist. Our Detective Inspector Rudge being the prime example. After the great Admiral Penistone is found dead in a boat along his hometown river, Rudge is called in to solve the murder and somehow manages to have so little character that Ronald Knox’s chapter opens by bemoaning his blandness in character. As we trapse from clue to clue, author to author, the momentum of the story is kept up by juicy clues left at the end of each chapter, many of which are abandoned in due course. Despite setting out with the goal that ‘no author shall unnecessarily complicate matters’, each author seems to ridicule clues left by their predecessors, choosing to introduce new problems that in turn become points of ridicule until the conclusion has so many clues to cherry pick from that you could build an entire franchise of endings from (which, mind you, is exactly what you’ll find after the ending, so maybe it worked as intended).
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the narrative is looking at how it twists and turns from author to author - after the entire introduction was staged in Hong Kong, it takes 5 chapters for the story to even mention it again, and as long as you know what you’re getting into, it’s an excellent game trying to piece together where the ideas in the story were first introduced, as you barrel towards Anthony Berkeley’s final chapter, which itself is nearly a third the length of the book to ensure it can adequately clean up the mess the other authors made.
Full of old stereotypes and innumerable clues that are just wasted ink in your notepad, the story hasn’t aged well, unless you are thoroughly and entirely invested in its premise. It’s a shame too, because I think if the book had been done in two passes - one to outline the narrative and pose solutions, and the other to write it, the result would have been infinitely stronger, without entirely undermining the premise. Fortunately the modern detection club is around to give it another whack with the spiritual successor “[b:The Sinking Admiral|27881737|The Sinking Admiral|The Detection Club|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459724098l/27881737._SY75_.jpg|47876033]”, but the truth is that “The Floating Admiral” is a book for mystery fiction nerds and academics. You won’t regret reading it, but it never quite feels the same spark that each author had on their own, so you’d really be better of just sinking, or floating, as the case may be, into one of their other works.
I give this book 1 insurmountable detective fiction author out of 14. It’s an entirely missable book but I genuinely hope it’s not forgotten by history. You can catch our full thoughts on the book over on Death of the Reader.
snickies's review against another edition
3.0
I thought it dragged a bit in the middle (the 39 questions! What was that?! Why did it keep going???) but by the end I was pretty in to it. I was pretty impressed by how it all came together in the end. Well done, masters of the golden age of mystery novels, I guess?
horthhill's review against another edition
4.0
The Floating Admiral is the result of a bit of amusement by a number of the leading detective story writers of the early '30s. Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers and others passed-on each succeeding chapter to the writer next on the list in a sort of writing relay without help of either overall outline or goal except that each succeeding chapter must advance the plot without ignoring the details of the preceding chapters. Of course, the final chapter must tie-up all that went before. All the writers are quite talented and the mechanics of the stories are at a high standard. No clue is left behind. But without an agreed-to outline, the story does meander a bit. The ending does tie-up loose ends, but the overall package is bit bulky and not very elegant. As a mystery novel, it is a bit ho-hum. But as a game, it is fun to follow the ingenuity of writers like Agatha Christie or Ronald Knox. A pretty good read.
tarioronar's review against another edition
4.0
This was a fun and quick book to read. Since every chapter is written by someone different, I expected there to be changes in style, and for the most part, it wasn't as jarring as I expected. The ending annoyed me though. Anthony Berkeley did a decent job tying up the mess his fellow writers made, and then in the last paragraph ruined what could have been a good ending.
l1nds's review
3.0
It starts out gloriously enough, but frankly it's all downhill after Dorothy L. Sayers. Her chapter is the best by miles (I'm excluding Agatha Christie from the criticism because her chapter is so short) and serves to highlight the shortcomings of her colleagues in the Detection Club.
Side note: there's a foreword by Simon Brett, the current President of the Detection Club and I can only assume he didn't bother to read the book because he writes of GK Chesterton "the prologue he wrote to this volume seems to bear no relation to anything in the ensuing novel". WTF? They must have lowered the standards for entry to the Club since it's inception, because the events in the prologue are crucial to the heart of the matter.
Side note: there's a foreword by Simon Brett, the current President of the Detection Club and I can only assume he didn't bother to read the book because he writes of GK Chesterton "the prologue he wrote to this volume seems to bear no relation to anything in the ensuing novel". WTF? They must have lowered the standards for entry to the Club since it's inception, because the events in the prologue are crucial to the heart of the matter.
irenemg's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
La idea era muy interesante: una novela de misterio escrita por los mejores escritores de misterio.
Sin embargo en la práctica las cosas no han salido tan bien. Se nota que es una historia escrita a cachos, algunos capítulos no aportan mucho y no se sabe muy bien por dónde va a tirar la historia.
Al final del libro vienen las soluciones propuestas por cada uno de los autores pero no sabría decir cuál me parece la mejor.
Es un libro interesante y entretenido pero los trabajos en grupo no suelen salir bien
Sin embargo en la práctica las cosas no han salido tan bien. Se nota que es una historia escrita a cachos, algunos capítulos no aportan mucho y no se sabe muy bien por dónde va a tirar la historia.
Al final del libro vienen las soluciones propuestas por cada uno de los autores pero no sabría decir cuál me parece la mejor.
Es un libro interesante y entretenido pero los trabajos en grupo no suelen salir bien
lindseysparks's review
4.0
Was this the best mystery ever? No. Was it incredibly fun and entertaining anyway? Absolutely. This was jointly written by member of the Detection Club, including Agatha Christie, Sayers and Chesterton. Each author wrote a chapter, not knowing what would come next. Any clue had to be wrapped up by the end. This makes the later chapters better as they work to weave random events from the earlier chapters together. It's an amazing achievement. The story makes sense and is better plotted than many more conventionally written stories. Each of the later authors also provided a solution, based only on what they knew at their chapter. Christie's was my favorite. This did start a little slow, and Chesterton's prologue just seemed really out of place, and wasn't good, which as disappointing. Overall though it was a fun, successful experiment.
marlisenicole's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
loud_purrbox's review against another edition
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
This is a fun little curio. It was interesting to see the different writers style and abilities. I liked that the introduction lets you know not to expect a great mystery but a peak into the craft. And it was instructive that the authors‘ proposed endings were included. A shame that Whitechurch and the Coles didn’t give a solution.
Chapter 8 by Knox should have been left out it’s that bad and has nothing of any value to the story in it.
Aside from that I think Christie, Sayers, Jepson and Berkeley can write and the rest sadly cannot.
Of those Christie and Jepson are my favorites. I’d never heard of Edgar Jepson so I’ll investigate him a bit further.
Sadly, Berkeley decided to flop the ending on the last half page. A bit weird and unnecessary but okay.
Christie’s proposed ending was the most fun after that you can see that they’re mostly struggling to make sense of everything and getting lost in the weeds. Which was mostly actually fun and interesting to see.
Sayers proposed ending was the only one I couldn’t finish because it was so boring and convoluted but it made it all the more interesting that her chapter was such a good read.
All in all, the best I can say for this book was that it was very interesting if not always actually a pleasure to read.
Chapter 8 by Knox should have been left out it’s that bad and has nothing of any value to the story in it.
Aside from that I think Christie, Sayers, Jepson and Berkeley can write and the rest sadly cannot.
Of those Christie and Jepson are my favorites. I’d never heard of Edgar Jepson so I’ll investigate him a bit further.
Sadly, Berkeley decided to flop the ending on the last half page. A bit weird and unnecessary but okay.
Christie’s proposed ending was the most fun after that you can see that they’re mostly struggling to make sense of everything and getting lost in the weeds. Which was mostly actually fun and interesting to see.
Sayers proposed ending was the only one I couldn’t finish because it was so boring and convoluted but it made it all the more interesting that her chapter was such a good read.
All in all, the best I can say for this book was that it was very interesting if not always actually a pleasure to read.
serenereader9's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
First of all the cover is gorgeous.
This book was really fun and I think if you’re already interested in the detection club and that era of detective stories you’ll appreciate it more(at least I did). I am already a fan of a few of these authors (Agatha Christie, Dorothy sayers, Anthony Berkeley)and liked all of their solutions. I also thought one of the authors in the appendix going through each of the previous chapter’s authors and where those clues pointed before giving his own solution was fun. Not gonna lie this was kind of hard to follow just because of all the clues and timelines and things to keep track of. I didn’t end up figuring it out. I also had no clue what we were supposed to get with the current and how long it takes to go upstream, downstream, when does the current change and go in the opposite direction etc.lol
This book was really fun and I think if you’re already interested in the detection club and that era of detective stories you’ll appreciate it more(at least I did). I am already a fan of a few of these authors (Agatha Christie, Dorothy sayers, Anthony Berkeley)and liked all of their solutions. I also thought one of the authors in the appendix going through each of the previous chapter’s authors and where those clues pointed before giving his own solution was fun. Not gonna lie this was kind of hard to follow just because of all the clues and timelines and things to keep track of. I didn’t end up figuring it out. I also had no clue what we were supposed to get with the current and how long it takes to go upstream, downstream, when does the current change and go in the opposite direction etc.lol