Three Against the Detection Club

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You may have heard of the Detection Club, the mystery writers club formed in 1930, whose original membership included authors such as Agatha Christie, Anthony Berkeley, and G.K. Chesterton. But did you know that the club also collaborated on several books? —Actually, anyone who had heard of the Detection Club would probably know this. Well, I've now read three of them. Here's what I thought!

The Floating Admiral

A round-robin novel in which each chapter is written by a different author, leaving G.K. Chesterton to tie it all up at the end. The roster features the most heavy-hitters, for sure, but it's more "writing exercise" than "readable". Reading it feels like a fever dream. The Floating Admiral recognizably has the structure of a mystery novel, but the story bobs from anchoring point to anchoring point. Plot threads are piled on, discarded, forgotten about. It's an interesting historical experiment for genre enthusiasts, but not something I would recommend as a book.

Ask a Policeman

Another round-robin, though this time the gimmick is that alternating pairs of authors trade sleuths, and write a chapter as each other in which a parade of detectives "solve" the case. It's a bit like The Poisoned Chocolates Case by way of Case for Three Detectives. A series of credible solutions are presented and then overturned, but with more overt parody of specific writers and their style. This one is eminently readable, though the mileage you'll get out of each chapter depends on how familiar you are with the source material. My favourite swap was Anthony Berkeley doing Peter Wimsey (in a parody that is very, very mean but very, very funny) while Dorothy L. Sayers writes Roger Sherringham (which isn't as mean as it could be, considering Sherringham is already a jerk of an antihero, but still pretty funny).

Six Against the Yard

I kept getting this one confused with Go Ask a Policeman, given the premise. I'm not so keen on it, even though I'm familiar with all six contributors. Each author sets out to write a "perfect murder" in short story format. After the story, a real retired police superintendent weighs in on how the police could have solved the case. Interesting in theory, I guess, but in practice kind of a slog. The actual stories don't feature any detection, and former-Superintendent Cornish is hardly going to say, like, "Yeah, you got me. That one would have completely baffled our incompetent boys in blue." I found myself wondering, "Who cares what he thinks?" Anyway, I guess it's evidence against that idea that all crime writers could get away with murder, if that keeps you up at night.

 

 

 

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