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A review by holtfan
The Floating Admiral by The Detection Club
4.0
Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton.
Imagine the great, classic authors of detective fiction playing a game. G.K. Chesterton writes the preface to a mystery. Then another author takes up his pen and writes the first chapter. Another writes the second chapter. Etc.
Nobody knows who did it. They have all their pet theories, of course. Each person writes down their guess to add to the end of the book along with an explanation about the clues they got and the clues they left. (My favorite line: "I am, frankly, in a complete muddle as to what has happened, and have tried to write a chapter that anyone can use to prove anything they like...")
The end result is, indeed, a complete muddle. And while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I would not recommend this as a mystery. It is no good guessing whodunnit when the answer quite literally depends on who is writing the chapter at the moment. While I admit I didn't see the twist coming in the final chapter, I can confidently say no one did but the author of that chapter. And it shows.
At the same time, what makes this book delightful is how each author's strengths and weaknesses shine through. They all start with basically the same characters. But a few adjectives here or there really make a difference. The wooden vicar of chapter 1 turns into a melodramatic but memorable side character in chapter 2. The any-man detective of the first three chapters gains a personality and hobby in chapter 4, only to turn into an inveterate follower of police procedure in chapter 5. Some chapters focus heavily on the unique personalities involved in the mystery. Others spend paragraphs organizing facts and clues.
The other aspect I enjoyed was reading through everyone's proposed solutions at the end of the mystery. Some authors spend pages accounting for every move by every character. Others try and guess what each author before them meant to do. And still others provide nothing more than a paragraph summarizing their best guess.
As a glimpse into the minds of various Golden Age detective authors and how they plotted, this was fun. Not much of a mystery but engaging despite the muddle.
Imagine the great, classic authors of detective fiction playing a game. G.K. Chesterton writes the preface to a mystery. Then another author takes up his pen and writes the first chapter. Another writes the second chapter. Etc.
Nobody knows who did it. They have all their pet theories, of course. Each person writes down their guess to add to the end of the book along with an explanation about the clues they got and the clues they left. (My favorite line: "I am, frankly, in a complete muddle as to what has happened, and have tried to write a chapter that anyone can use to prove anything they like...")
The end result is, indeed, a complete muddle. And while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I would not recommend this as a mystery. It is no good guessing whodunnit when the answer quite literally depends on who is writing the chapter at the moment. While I admit I didn't see the twist coming in the final chapter, I can confidently say no one did but the author of that chapter. And it shows.
At the same time, what makes this book delightful is how each author's strengths and weaknesses shine through. They all start with basically the same characters. But a few adjectives here or there really make a difference. The wooden vicar of chapter 1 turns into a melodramatic but memorable side character in chapter 2. The any-man detective of the first three chapters gains a personality and hobby in chapter 4, only to turn into an inveterate follower of police procedure in chapter 5. Some chapters focus heavily on the unique personalities involved in the mystery. Others spend paragraphs organizing facts and clues.
The other aspect I enjoyed was reading through everyone's proposed solutions at the end of the mystery. Some authors spend pages accounting for every move by every character. Others try and guess what each author before them meant to do. And still others provide nothing more than a paragraph summarizing their best guess.
As a glimpse into the minds of various Golden Age detective authors and how they plotted, this was fun. Not much of a mystery but engaging despite the muddle.