Deze auteurs, leden van de nieuw opgerichte Detection Club, werkten in 1931 samen aan een roman, waarbij ieder een hoofdstuk bijdroeg en anderen de proloog en epiloog schreven. Hun gezamenlijke inspanning was gericht op het creëren van een ingewikkeld mysterie, waarbij de grenzen van het genre werden verkend. Deze gedeelde creatie benadrukt een toewijding aan innovatief vertellen en de kunst van spanning. Werken van figuren als G.K. Chesterton en Agatha Christie blijven fundamenten van de mysterie literatuur.
The Floating Admiral was the first of the Detection Club's collaborative novels, in which twelve of its members wrote a single novel. Eighty-five years later, fourteen members of the club have once again collaborated to produce The Sinking Admiral.
Ten years since it was first published in hardback, and now for the first time in mass market paperback, this volume of short stories by the cream of British crime writing talent celebrates 75 years of the quintessential Detection Club.
This classic crime novel by six different authors is introduced by Martin Edwards, archivist of the Detection Club, and includes a never-before- published Preface by Agatha Christie, `Detective Writers in England', in which she discusses her approach to writing and her fellow writers in the Detection Club.
In the quiet seaside town of Whynmouth, Inspector Rudge seldom faces murder cases. However, his routine is shattered when an old sailor arrives with a rowing boat carrying a fresh corpse, stabbed in the chest. The investigation reveals multiple challenges; the vicar, owner of the boat, seems to be hiding crucial information, and the victim's niece has mysteriously vanished. The case grows increasingly complex, raising doubts about the victim's identity and the number of people involved in this extraordinary crime. Inspector Rudge grapples with the intricacies of the situation, questioning whether he will ever uncover the truth. In 1931, a group of crime writers, including Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, collaborated on a unique literary project under the Detection Club. Each author contributed a chapter in a game of literary consequences, with G.K. Chesterton providing a paradoxical prologue and Anthony Berkeley resolving the story. The authors also submitted their own solutions in sealed envelopes, revealed at the book's conclusion, with Agatha Christie's clever resolution noted as particularly outstanding. The contributors included notable figures such as Canon Victor Whitechurch, G.D.H. Cole, and Ronald Knox, among others.
Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton and nine other writers from the legendary Detection Club collaborate in this fiendishly clever but forgotten crime novel first published 80 years ago.