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qiandaizi's review against another edition
2.0
Golden age mystery bigotry watch part 3: Kind of a lot. Several uses of the word Ch*nk, one n*****, and Ch*inamen. (Racism particularly apparent in the Chesterton chapter.)
julesgou's review against another edition
3.0
This is really the first book that I've read like this; every author does a different chapter. Another interesting point is that each author needs to have a solution; their facts can't be random.
Most of the solutions had the same murder and some similar ideas but it was really cool that everyone had a different solution.
I found the ending of the book (pretty much the last paragraph) kind of anti climatic. I thought the solution was well done but the last paragraph didn't fit.
The authors' styles shined through in their chapter as well. Some were more mathematical/logical in the set up of their chapter. Then you had the others who were more detail oriented and had more descriptions. Some showed conversations others summarized. It was quite cool to move from one author to another and you never really know where that author was going to take you.
I've only read Agatha Christie's books and "The Floating Admiral" was a great little sampler of other authors' writing. I'm definitely going to check out other authors in this club because of their chapters.
Great mystery. Great sample of mystery writers. I can't wait to read more of their stuff.
Most of the solutions had the same murder and some similar ideas but it was really cool that everyone had a different solution.
I found the ending of the book (pretty much the last paragraph) kind of anti climatic. I thought the solution was well done but the last paragraph didn't fit.
The authors' styles shined through in their chapter as well. Some were more mathematical/logical in the set up of their chapter. Then you had the others who were more detail oriented and had more descriptions. Some showed conversations others summarized. It was quite cool to move from one author to another and you never really know where that author was going to take you.
I've only read Agatha Christie's books and "The Floating Admiral" was a great little sampler of other authors' writing. I'm definitely going to check out other authors in this club because of their chapters.
Great mystery. Great sample of mystery writers. I can't wait to read more of their stuff.
meggo's review against another edition
3.0
I love the backstory of this book, which I found at a used bookstore. A bunch of the British mystery writers back in the day — including my faves Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers — used to have a detective club. They’d get together and have dinner and brainstorm plot ideas (having sworn secrecy). They decided to write a mystery where one author wrote the first chapter, passed it off to the next, who took over, and so on. Each author also had to submit a proposed solution that they had in mind while writing when they turned in their chapter. You get to read all those at the end. Brilliant idea!!
The downsides: it definitely feels like you’re reading a mystery written by like 10 different people. It’s confusing at times and I just had to be fine with that! Some of the authors also use racist language, which was unfortunately all too common in mysteries during this time.
The downsides: it definitely feels like you’re reading a mystery written by like 10 different people. It’s confusing at times and I just had to be fine with that! Some of the authors also use racist language, which was unfortunately all too common in mysteries during this time.
theelliemo's review against another edition
4.0
Enjoyed this one; I liked the character development, no mean feat when the book is written by a dozen different authors! I want to see Inspector Rudge in more books!
smcleish's review against another edition
3.0
A round robin detective novel, with some of the biggest names of the time contributing, including [a:Agatha Christie|123715|Agatha Christie|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1321738793p2/123715.jpg] and [a:Dorothy L. Sayers|8734|Dorothy L. Sayers|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1206564934p2/8734.jpg]). Quite interesting, but the collaboration method doesn't quite work. Each author contributed a chapter, with the rule that they should also produce a solution to the puzzle to show that they had something in mind. This means that many of the pieces are basically a rush to include pointers to the solution the author had in mind, while also laying down challenges to subsequent contributors. This makes it something more of an intellectual puzzle at times, rather than a novel, with complications such as estuarial tides meaning that a boat on the river sometimes drifts towards the sea and sometimes away from it making it hard for the reader to follow in places. Judging from the comments in the solutions, included as an appendix, the authors also found it difficult. It comes as no great surprise, as Dorothy Sayers remarked in her original introduction, that the final contribution, from [a:Anthony Berkeley|246785|Anthony Berkeley|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1408927615p2/246785.jpg], is entitled "Clearing Up the Mess".
This edition has extra introductory material from [a:Simon Brett|51504|Simon Brett|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1269885094p2/51504.jpg], President of the Detection Club when this edition was produced, which includes some information about those authors unlikely to be familiar to modern readers.
It may be advisable to skip the prologue provided by [a:G.K. Chesterton|7014283|G.K. Chesterton|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1365860649p2/7014283.jpg] until after the rest of the novel, as it gives away points from the back story of some of the characters which are key to the solution.
This edition has extra introductory material from [a:Simon Brett|51504|Simon Brett|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1269885094p2/51504.jpg], President of the Detection Club when this edition was produced, which includes some information about those authors unlikely to be familiar to modern readers.
It may be advisable to skip the prologue provided by [a:G.K. Chesterton|7014283|G.K. Chesterton|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1365860649p2/7014283.jpg] until after the rest of the novel, as it gives away points from the back story of some of the characters which are key to the solution.
msisintheunknown's review against another edition
3.0
A ideia até é interessante, a concretização, no entanto, deixa muito a desejar...
fellfromfiction's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting exercise in what the greatest minds of the 1920s were capable of!
lucyb's review against another edition
3.0
I was afraid that this would be merely gimmicky, or (on the too many cooks principle) incoherent; I was pleasantly surprised. I found this to be an enjoyable whodunit, liberally strewn with red herrings and mysterious motives. The multiple authorial intents did tend to make the writing expository rather than exploratory... thus foiling one of my own habits as a reader of detective stories, which is to try to form my own judgments of the characters and motives involved. I was surprised, to be honest, by the extent to which Agatha Christie's and Dorothy L. Sayers' contributions stood out (though not, of course, by the fact that they did so.) Both chapters are unusually vivid in their characterization, and both of their solutions remarkably ingenious.
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