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

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.