Amanda G. reviewed on + 157 more book reviews
The entry for this book is somewhat misleading. It is a rather fun book that the members of the Detection Club wrote in collaboration. G.K Chesterton wrote a prologue that set out a problem. Chapter 1, by Canon Victor L. Whitechurch, involves the actual discovery of a corpse. Each succeeding chapter was written by a different member of the Detection Club, including Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers among others. In the introduction, Dorothy Sayers explains that as the growing story was passed to the next member for his or her addition to the story, certain rules applied. Each of the clues supplied by previous writers must by incorporated into the continuing story, for example. Starting with chapter 3 and running through the second to last chapter, each author provided a synopsis of a possible ending for the story, which was not available to subsequent authors until the entire book was finished. These endings are included in an appendix, which is interesting for the varieties of possible solutions!
