The Sunken Sailor (A Serial Novel) [Hardcover]

Anne Perry (Introduction), Simon Brett (Collaborator), Sharan Newman (Collaborator), Francine Mathews (Collaborator), Walter Satterthwait (Collaborator), Margaret Coel (Collaborator), Carolyn Hart (Collaborator), Carolyn Wheat (Collaborator), Dorothy Cannell (Collaborator), Deborah Crombie (Collaborator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2004

During a weekend house party in a proper English village, a body is discovered at the bottom of a pond tied to a submerged statue of Neptune.

And the weekend has only just begun.

So has this ingenious mystery-a literary game of round robin in which fourteen master crime writers have each contributed a chapter of their own. What they deliver is a wildly entertaining whodunit with as many dizzying twists, turnabouts, double-crosses, and divergent styles as there are solutions and suspects.

Featuring the bestselling and multiple award-winning talents of:

Simon Brett
Jan Burke
Dorothy Cannell
Maragaret Coel
Deborah Crombie
Eileen Dreyer
Carolyn Hart
Edward Marston
Francine Mathews
Sharan Newman
Alexandra Ripley
Walter Satterthwait
Sarah Smith
Carolyn Whe

Editorial Reviews

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.

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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Hardcover; First Edition edition (April 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425194280
• ISBN-13: 978-0425194287
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,906,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done round robin mystery, April 6, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sunken Sailor (A Serial Novel) (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, December 30, 2004

By 

Diogenes (long beach, wa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sunken Sailor (A Serial Novel) (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.