- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Prime Crime (MM); Reprint edition (Mar 1 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 042520202X
- ISBN-13: 978-0425202029
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 136 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,173,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In the best serial novels, like the 1932 classic The Floating Admiral, individual contributors play off one another, but here, in this spoof of an interwar-period English manor-house mystery, a diverse group of American and British authors mostly disregard preceding developments and redo them in as absurd a way as possible. Simon Brett, president of the U.K.'s Detection Club under whose aegis The Floating Admiral was written, gets things off to a grand start by introducing a slew of briefly and vividly sketched characters and the somewhat dilapidated Castle Crawsbey. A proper butler, an American admiral, a Russian countess, a South American adventuress and other eccentric types offer ample opportunity for farce. Jan Burke, Dorothy Cannell, Margaret Coel, Deborah Crombie, Eileen Dreyer, Carolyn Hart, Francine Mathews, Sharan Newman, Alexandra Ripley, Walter Satterthwait, Sarah Smith and Carolyn Wheat each add mayhem and slapstick as they cheerfully flout convention, fair play and common sense. Edward Marston does a heroic job of trying to create a suitable ending from the rubble of identities and plot fragments. Sometimes amusing, but too often merely silly, the book ultimately sinks and the crew goes down with the ship.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
The Sunken Sailor features all the ingredients for a proper 1930s murder mystery, including one weekend party at a decaying castle, a few servings of oddballs from Europe and beyond, plenty of titled aristocrats, and, the piece de resistance, a butler. The recipe is complete when one of the guests, an admiral, ends up dead at the bottom of the pool ("What shall we do with the sunken sailor?"). The weekend begins with billiards and brandy, but murder is next on the agenda, and soon the castle has become a crime scene, with all the guests as suspects. The 14 writers here--such as Simon Brett, Eileen Dreyer, and Sarah Smith--know the period well, and, though cliched throughout, the writing never stoops to buffoonery, even as disguises and mistaken identities abound. A funny little whodunit. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well done round robin mystery,
By
This review is from: Sunken Sailor (Hardcover)
Between the world wars, the aristocracy tries to return to what they once had. In Rutfordshire, Daisy the Dowager Duchess of Faughstrayne hosts a weekend party with an eclectic assortment of guests. Among the attendees are wealthy American Admiral Cornelius Brandon and his son Whitchell, and the Duchess' neighbor Sir Gerry. The latter finds the murdered corpse of the Admiral.Sir Gerry considers himself an amateur sleuth so he decides to investigate the situation after notifying Chief Inspector Reggie Arbuthnot of the homicide. Reggie wants Sir Gerry to stay out of the case except as a witness because he is jealous that the amateur always solves cases before he can. Sir Gerry finds the body of the next victim Consuella, the new Duchess of Faughstrayne. More deaths follow and soon Reggie realizes that several of the guests are not what they seem and also have motives, but which one would kill still remains unsolved. THE SUNKEN SAILOR is a round robin work in which fourteen authors provide a chapter that leads to the next writer's segment. This results in many unexpected twists and turns in a plot that showcases several different writing styles that somehow blends together into a fine cohesive storey line that is a treat for readers. Harriet Klausner
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well done round robin mystery,
By Harriet Klausner - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sunken Sailor (Hardcover)
Between the world wars, the aristocracy tries to return to what they once had. In Rutfordshire, Daisy the Dowager Duchess of Faughstrayne hosts a weekend party with an eclectic assortment of guests. Among the attendees are wealthy American Admiral Cornelius Brandon and his son Whitchell, and the Duchess? neighbor Sir Gerry. The latter finds the murdered corpse of the Admiral.Sir Gerry considers himself an amateur sleuth so he decides to investigate the situation after notifying Chief Inspector Reggie Arbuthnot of the homicide. Reggie wants Sir Gerry to stay out of the case except as a witness because he is jealous that the amateur always solves cases before he can. Sir Gerry finds the body of the next victim Consuella, the new Duchess of Faughstrayne. More deaths follow and soon Reggie realizes that several of the guests are not what they seem and also have motives, but which one would kill still remains unsolved. THE SUNKEN SAILOR is a round robin work in which fourteen authors provide a chapter that leads to the next writer?s segment. This results in many unexpected twists and turns in a plot that showcases several different writing styles that somehow blends together into a fine cohesive storey line that is a treat for readers. Harriet Klausner 0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Sunken Sailor Stinks,
By Diogenes - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sunken Sailor (Hardcover)
Don't waste any of your time with this "novel": an exercise in serial silliness by 14 indifferent "masters of suspense", who only provide a melange of malaprops and a collection of cliches.
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
