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Book Note: Agatha Christie, The Floating Admiral

I read this book about 5-Nov-2004. This is the first time I've read this book. The book is copyright 1931. This note was last modified Sunday, 07-Nov-2004 21:27:33 PST.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

 

Actually, by the members the Detection Club, which included Dorothy L. Sayers and G.K. Chesterton, too. And many others who probably had reputations at the time.

It's an interesting stunt; essentially a round-robin story, with each author doing a chapter and passing it on, and some rules on how later authors have to respect the clues and such planted by earlier ones. And each author turned in an explanation of the ending they had in mind, to show that their chapter had a reasonable conclusion possible.

It's not a bad puzzle story. Complicated, certainly. I think they were showing off for each other a good bit. We've got lost heirs, people disguised as each other, and remarkable coincidences (the heiress's French maid is the wife who left the Vicar?).

There's some nice discussion of the behavior of a tidal river, including the issues of mooring a boat in one.


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David Dyer-Bennet