The Case of the Chinese Patient

The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 23

By: Arthur Conan Doyle, Nora Godwin

Narrated by: Bryan Godwin

A patient with a dangerous contagious disease disappears without a trace from a quarantine hospital. With the threat of a devastating pandemic on the horizon, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are commissioned by the British government to immediately find the person in question and bring him back to the isolation ward. A dramatic race against time begins.

©2021 Ignatius Records (P)2021 Ignatius Records

I felt duped into buying this.

I don’t even know where to begin with this train wreck. The fact that it had ADC’s name attached to it led me to believe that he was the author. I should have done my homework. In reality his character was merely the inspiration and Ms. Godwin is the actual author of this mess. My problem now is to critique either the terrible story or the even more deplorable reading. Whether the Godwin’s are a married couple or family, I cannot say; but it will suffice to hope this is their only collaboration and that there will be no more in the future. The story was contrived to relate to the current pandemic. Not only was the story weak and heavy-handed, it was a laughable and an amateurish attempt at a Sherlock Holmes adventure. Godwin created a familiarity that was never depicted in any ADC work. There were contractions in words and slang that would not have existed between the two gentlemen. There were modern phrases that would not have been used at the time. And it was apparent the author never read any original Conan Doyle pieces. Perhaps she watched an episode of Sherlock on PBS and felt compelled to write her own episode. But the weakness does not stop there. The reading was probably the worst I have ever heard on Audible. Mr. Godwin sounded more like an amateur reading from a famous author in a YouTube video from his bedroom. He is certainly not a professional nor was any professional direction involved. It is as if they are two high school students completing a project for their creative writing class. I could go on but I want to move forward from this disaster. I will end by saying that I will be requesting that Audible refund the credit I wasted on this piece. That it is even part of the Audible library is astonishing. Do yourself a favor and skip this very disappointing “Sherlock Holmes” in name only story.