Floating Admiral

A collaborative detective novel written by fourteen members of the Detection Club. Each author contributed one chapter without knowing the solution planned by any of the previous contributors.

Inspector Rudge does not encounter many cases of murder in the sleepy seaside town of Whynmouth. But when an old sailor lands a rowing boat containing a fresh corpse with a stab wound to the chest, the Inspector's investigation immediately comes up against several obstacles. The vicar, whose boat the body was found in, is clearly withholding information, and the victim's niece has disappeared. There is clearly more to this case than meets the eye – even the identity of the victim is called into doubt. Inspector Rudge begins to wonder just how many people have contributed to this extraordinary crime and whether he will ever unravel it.

The authors of this novel are: G. K. Chesterton, Canon Victor Whitechurch, G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole, Henry Wade, Agatha Christie, John Rhode, Milward Kennedy, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Edgar Jepson, Clemence Dane and Anthony Berkeley.

Contents:
Introduction by Dorothy L. Sayers
Prologue - “The Three Pipe Dreams” by G. K. Chesterton
Chapter 1 - Corpse Ahoy! By Canon Victor L. Whitechurch
Chapter 2 - Breaking the news by G. D. H. and M. Cole
Chapter 3 - Bright Thoughts on Tides by Henry Wade
Chapter 4 - Mainly Conversation by Agatha Christie
Chapter 5 - Inspector Rudge Begins to Form a Theory by John Rhode
Chapter 6 - Inspector Rudge Thinks Better of It by Milward Kennedy
Chapter 7 - Shocks for the Inspector by Dorothy L. Sayers
Chapter 8 - Thirty-Nine Articles of Doubt by Ronald A. Knox
Chapter 9 - The Visitor in the Night by Freeman Wills Crofts
Chapter 10 - The Bathroom Basin by Edgar Jepson
Chapter 11 - At the Vicarage by Clemence Dane
Chapter 12 - Clearing Up the Mess by Anthony Berkeley
Appendix I - Solutions