Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - The Floating Admiral

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

The Floating Admiral by G.D.H. & M. Cole, John Rhode, Clemence Dane, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Agatha Christie, Ronald A. Knox, G.K. Chesterton, Henry Wade, Edgar Jepson, Milward Kennedy, Victor L. Whitechurch, Freeman Wills Crofts

2 reviews

prashiie's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-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

4.0

“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.”

Content Warnings

shazzea's review against another edition

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2.5

I think the idea is really interesting: a mystery story where each chapter is written by a different mystery author. It's pretty fun seeing these authors try to steer the story to the solution that they think is correct, sometimes by retconning clues that other authors left in. The funniest example of this is when one author closes their chapter by dropping the hint the victim is an imposter by having the person who discovered the body say it was strange that they didn't recognise him as they had been in the military together. The next chapter immediately has the detective assert that, well, he's an old man and his memory can't be relied upon. It was also amusing seeing how the detective character ranged from being a simple man to a bit of an asshole depending on who was writing him. I imagine the book would be even more fun if you were familiar with most of the writers. I was only familiar with Agatha Christie and her chapter made me smile as the detective consults with the local gossip, something which happens in many of Christie's works. All that being said, I couldn't call it a compelling or coherent narrative. It feels pointless to try to solve the mystery yourself as each writer has their own ideas and there were so many inconsistencies that it was hard to keep track of the characters and what they were doing. The final chapter did a pretty good job at resolving all of the clues but I still didn't feel very satisfied. There's also some racial slurs and stereotypes about chinese people and some other outdated tropes. It may have been a fun idea, but it wasn't a fun book.

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