Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson

Medical Mysteries: Volume 1

By: Ed Chan, Lee Shackleford, Rob Nisbet, Geri Schear, Deanna Baran, Thomas Burns, David Marcum, DJ Tyrer, Claire Stemp, Roger Riccard

Narrated by: Tim Peck

“What do you know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa corruption?"

“There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological possibilities, in the East, Watson.” He paused after each sentence to collect his failing strength. “I have learned so much during some recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect....” ("The Adventure of the Dying Detective", by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In this two-volume collection of traditional Sherlock Holmes adventures, the good doctor himself is given a chance to shine. These two volumes contain 26 mysteries involving such maladies as plagues, poisonings, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, somnambulism, and many more! The stories are traditional Holmes pastiches and are written by some of today’s top Sherlockian writers!

This anthology is in collaboration with Dr. Ed Chan, who is raising awareness of lung disease caused by non-tuberculous mycobacteria, a very difficult-to-treat (often incurable) and increasingly prevalent form of pneumonia (related to tuberculosis) caused by microorganisms that are acquired from our home and outdoor environments.

©2022 Belanger Books (P)2023 Belanger Books

Need to work on editing skills

My only real complaint is the poor editing of all of the stories. The narrator who I guess is also the producer should have reviewed his work. In practically all stories there were repeated words or sentences that were obvious do overs but the original error was not removed.

An interesting melange of stories

Some of the stories were first rate, close to Canon, while others were just good. It was definitely interesting to see Watson getting to be more than the Nigel Bruce to Sherlock Holmes. And seeing him get to use his medical knowledge and expertise to do more than merely being Holmes’ quick and dirty field autopsy guy was definitely fun.

However, and you knew there would be a however, the narrator was simply not up to the task. He did not give each character a sufficiently distinct “voice” to make it clear instantly who was speaking. I know that that is harder work, but it really makes the difference between a reader and a glorified text to speech person.

But that’s not all. Every few minutes, he either misread or mispronounced a word. You need a larger than average vocabulary to properly read Victorian or even pseudo-Victorian literature, and when you don’t have it, it is painfully obvious to people like me, who do!

Finally, the editing was just not up to scratch. There were a number of places where one or more lines were repeated, and in one of the readings we were treated to his dog barking.

So my summary is this: the stories are at least good, or better, but be prepared to be disappointed with the narration.

Good Book

This was a great book of Sherlock Holmes stories. They are as if Sir Author Conan Doyle wrote them.

Narrator

The narrator was so bad. I quit the stories half way through it would have been better by virtual voice and that’s not saying much.