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Rating: 
Summary: entertaining experiment
Review: Eventhough Christie only wrote one chapter here, this reads and feels exactly like one of her own books. The set up is quite impressive, with the floating admiral of the title found sailing along in an abandonned boat with a dagger in him, which is all explained away by the clever and quite natural conclusion. Despite going on about tide flows and boat paintings and rope cuttings, the characters to this crafty piece are all quite believable, considering several writers made them move and speak. All is well by the end and a satisfying summary to the events beforehand is smoothly explained, so you can skip past the silly alternate outcomes the authors each come up with in an unneccessary, sort of epilogue. They add nothing to the main story but a lot of what ifs. (That said, Christie's solution of the murderer in drag is hilarious...) P.S. Some rather foolish stereotypes can be found in the narrative which doesn't distract from the story. They're just there, like a disturbing sign of the times.
Rating: 
Summary: A Hard-to-Find Curiosity
Review: In the early 1930s the cream of British mystery novelists formed an organization named "The Detection Club," the purpose of which was to encourage superior writing in the genre. No sooner was the club founded than its members embarked on a game of sorts: they would write a murder mystery together. The result was THE FLOATING ADMIRAL.The Gregg Press edition is the most desirable printing of this hard-to-find novel I have encountered, opening with a 1979 essay by Detection Club member Christianna Brand (author of such novels as GREEN FOR DANGER and DEATH IN HIGH HEELS), who recalls the history of the club and sketches memorable portraits of its members. This is followed by the original 1932 introduction by Dorothy L. Sayers, in which she describes the process by which the novel was written: each participating author wrote a chapter in turn, remaining consistent with the plot as created in all previous chapters and with a specific and justifiable solution of their own creation in mind. The authors who played this literary game create a roster of the finest English mystery novelists of the early 1930s. After a prologue by C.K. Chesterson, creator of the famous "Father Brown" mysteries, there follows chapters by Victor L. Whitechurch; G.D.H. and M. Cole; Henry Wade; Agatha Christie; John Rhodes; Milward Kennedy; Dorothy L. Sayers; Ronald A. Knox; Freeman Wills Crofts; Edgar Jepson; Clemence Dane; and Anthony Berkeley, better known as Anthony Iles. The story itself concerns Inspector Rudge, a rural officer who is called to the scene of a peculiar murder: the body of Admiral Penistone has been found stabbed to the heart and floating in a small boat on the River Whyn. Not only are the circumstances odd, it soon transpires that there are several people who might have interest in his demise--including his peculiar niece Elma, her possibly undesirable lover, and her missing brother. But although the premise is something of a classic, the novel largely runs aground due to the scattered approach of the participating writers. This is not to say that any of the authors involved write badly. It is to say, however, that as the novel progresses each writer has considerably more difficulty in lining up the endless parade of clues offered by those who have gone before to create either a cohesive narrative or a reasonable solution. So the end result is like buckshot: a story that seems to fly in so many different directions that it has no long-range strike. Even so, fans of 1930s murder mysteries will prize this novel as a hard-to-find curiosity--and they will be particularly pleased to note that most of the authors involved offered very different solutions to the crime, many of them more interesting than anything in the text itself and all of them collected in a neat appendix. GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Rating: 
Summary: Murder Meets Improv
Review: The Detection Club books are unlike any other ever created. Basically, Agatha Christie and ten other authors (for The Floating Admiral) contribute pieces of a murder mystery without sharing what solutions they were leaning towards until the APPENDIX at the very end. Each author has their own solution and has to work within the framework of all the other clues contributed by the others. More of a game than a murder mystery, it's a fascinating read, but you shouldn't try to read too much of it at one sitting.
Rating:
Summary: Murder Meets Improv
Review: The Detection Club books are unlike any other ever created. Basically, Agatha Christie and ten other authors (for The Floating Admiral) contribute pieces of a murder mystery without sharing what solutions they were leaning towards until the APPENDIX at the very end. Each author has their own solution and has to work within the framework of all the other clues contributed by the others. More of a game than a murder mystery, it's a fascinating read, but you shouldn't try to read too much of it at one sitting.
Rating:
Summary: a good brain workout
Review: This book is written by more than Agatha Christie. So those expecting to read another Agatha Christie Mystery Sorry! But you won't be disappointed. The Floating Admirmal is very interesting in that each chapter is written by an author of mystery in one form or another. This is fun as you see the writings of others. It is cool how each author gets their chapter to flow with the chapter before and after it. Chapter 8 is the hardest chapter to get through and a little boring as it is in list format Where as I feel it would have been more interesting if the inspector was talking to someone. Otherwise smooth sailing afterwards. The story ends with finding out the killer or is he/she really the killer Read on and you decide who the real killer is maybe you have your own ideas as to who killed the admiral and why. A good workout for the brain. Have fun reading and solving this unique mystery
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