BOOK REVIEW
The Floating Admiral
By Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton and 11 other members of the Detective Club. Hachette India, Rs 395
Originally published 80 years ago, ‘The Floating Admiral’ is believed to be the first collaborative detective novel written by a group of 14 crime writers owing allegiance to a Detective Club started by Dorothy L Sayers and GK Chesterton in pre-World War II, Great Britain.
As Sayers says in the introduction to the whodunit, “The club was a private association of writers… existing chiefly for the purpose of eating dinners together at suitable intervals and of talking illimitable shop.”
The royalty from the book was to pay for the club’s dinners. It’s not clear whether the book sold well or not when it was first published in 1931, but it appears it is the only one to which Agatha Christie contributed her wits. And hence it’s ‘collector’ value.
The other uniqueness of the novel lies in the fact that each of its chapters was written by one of the crime writers to produce a complete novel. But that’s not all. Each writer had to ensure fair play in solving the mystery by taking into consideration what the writer/s before him/her had written, its possible solution and to avoid at all cost any form of intuition, ghosts or accidents. Interestingly, at the time of writing each of the chapters none of the writers were aware of each other’s solution. Though each provided one and the reader can read it in the annexure. And herein, lies the charm of this unusual endeavour.
Like other crime books of the time, ‘The Floating Admiral’ is set in a ‘typical’ English countryside town outside London with a winding river, a stone bridge, a forest, country cottages and sprawling meadows. Typical too are its protagonists the carefree rustics, garrulous hotel landlady, slow-witted domestics, mysterious women, swashbuckling men, a reticent vicar, and of course, the de riguer detective – in this case a police inspector.
Writer Canon Victor L Whitechurch sets the ball rolling with the discovery of a body of an admiral found dead in a rowing boat floating down a river called, Whyn (which we discover in the course of the novel is a play on the word ‘whim’ referring to the name of the talkative town, Whynmouth as well as the river’s capricious tides caused by the sea into which it flows and vice versa).
In this introduction to the case we are familiarised with the initial cast of characters – the dead Admiral Penistone, old navy hand Ned Ware who discovers the body, Inspector Rudge and a vicar called Peter Mount. Thereafter, come the rest of the chapters where each of the writers introduces a new character or twist to the tale. Agatha Christie’s chapter is the third in the lot.
Stiff upper lip English humour finds its place of honour in the titles and context of each of the chapters that reveals how each writer pitted his or her wits against the other. Starting from ‘Corps Ahoy!’ we move on to ‘Breaking the News’, ‘Bright Thoughts on Tides’, ‘Mainly Conversation’, ‘Inspector Rudge Forms a Theory’, ‘Inspector Rudge Thinks Better of It’ and so on till we come to ‘Thirty Nine Articles of Doubt’ and ‘Clearing the Mess’.
Incidentally, ‘Thirty Nine Articles of Doubt’ harks to the formation of the Anglican Church of England – a fact that may escape readers not familiar with England’s history with Catholic Church. Though frankly speaking it has nothing to do with the events that lead to the unfortunate murder of the Admiral or novel per se. But in terms of writing, it does appear that the entire novel is more of a parody on detective genre of the 1930s Britain than a genuine attempt at creating a crime masterpiece.
One can debate on the different writing styles of the writers and its impact on the overall cohesiveness of the narrative, but it is actually the solutions that each of them provide that holds the reader’s attention. The publishers, recognizing the hallowed status of Agatha Christie, have pitted her solution as the most ingenious. Yet, Anthony’s Berkley’s solution that actually wraps up the tale and Dorothy L Sayers’ that appears as one of the other possibilities at the back of the book, are actually far more satisfying.
(An edited version of this review appeared in Mail Today issue dated 6 November 2011 here http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=6112011)
