Reviews tagging 'Murder'

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

1 review

prashiie's review against another edition

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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.”
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