The paper deals with the design and performance evaluation of optimum and suboptimum multistatic radar receivers. Several detection schemes are considered according to the possible models for the wanted signal: completely known; random phase; Rayleigh amplitude and random phase; and one-dominant-plus-Rayleigh amplitude and random phase. The inherent complexity of the multistatic structure may be alleviated by resorting to a simplified scheme suggested here which envisages a number of peripheral decisions in as many conventional receivers, followed by a central decision based on an OR criterion. The latter design admittedly yields a suboptimum receiver, but an assessment of its performance shows the existence of a wide range of operating conditions of practical engineering interest where performance degradation with respect to the optimum receiver is negligible.