A review by shazzea
The Floating Admiral by John Rhode, Clemence Dane, Dorothy L. Sayers, David Timson, Anthony Berkeley, Agatha Christie, The Detection Club, Simon Brett, Ronald Knox, G. D. H. Cole, G.K. Chesterton, Henry Wade, Edgar Jepson, Milward Kennedy, Margaret Cole, Victor L. Whitechurch, Freeman Wills Crofts

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 There's also some racial slurs and stereotypes about chinese people and some other outdated tropes.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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