A Sherlock Holmes Sextuplet: Six Sherlockian Pastiches

This volume contains six entertaining Sherlock Holmes pastiches which, mostly, have at least some of the flavor of the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories. These stories were licensed by the Arthur Conan Doyle estate. Rather nice as Mr. Curran's family had a couple of direct connections with Doyle through a several greats grandmother who was a spiritualist who knew Doyle and through her son who corresponded with him.One of my favorite stories in the collection features Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick and the young boy who eventually developed the CLUE board game. This volume also contains a longish sample of Mr. Curran's mystery/adventure novel, WINSLOW: THE LOST HUNTERS. The sample was good enough that I am now reading the book.I downloaded this book via Kindle Unlimited.

This was a good addition to the Sherlockian lore. I felt the author did a really good job of staying true to the original material. Sherlock Holmes is nearly always polite to women but admittedly views them as the weaker, gentler sex. I have found the original works to be lacking in captivating female characters and that holds true here as well. Even as I feel this is a negative, it is in line with Doyle’s works. Watson felt true to canon as well, being a little dense but also the most steadfast companion Holmes could ask for.The Adventure of the Monstrous Medium was my favorite tale, perhaps because it has a female adversary that makes Holmes and Watson work for their fee. While we don’t get much time with the main adversary, Holmes very neatly lays out how her scam network pulls people in and robs them of information, goods, and money. Of course there is a very beautiful woman in great need. Sherlock can’t turn her away and Watson is always the gentleman. I really enjoyed how an opium den and a couple of men chained to beds played a part in the plot.The Adventure of Colonel Mustard’s Secret was just plain fun. Yes, there’s a candlestick and eventually a board game. Ha! Espionage plays a role. And there’s yet one more lady for our heroes to rescue.This collection starts with The Adventure of Miss Stephanie Ray which is set before Watson becomes acquainted with his Mary. This double, or triple cross, was fun to listen to with Sherlock providing his classic summation near the end. I did feel a bit for Watson as he was sorely used. Still, Watson is that kind of good chap that won’t hold a grudge.The Adventure of the Numerologist’s Cypher was clever and pulled on spiritualistic stuff once again. The combination of Sherlock’s very logical mind and the supernatural is always a good mix for me. I love seeing his mind work on all the logical bits, tracing down even the minutest fact and almost always proving non-supernatural reasons for everything seen and experienced by the characters. This tale has the added bonus of a cipher.Several tales in this collection include street orphans, which we all know tugged on Sherlock’s heart strings. He uses them to collect info and look for people, but I have a sneaking suspicion that his little errands are excuses to provide the orphans with a bit of income.Lestrade makes few (just 2?) appearances in this tale. Oddly, I didn’t miss him and perhaps that’s because he is so often just an archetype, providing a little legality to bolster the actions of our heroes.Over all, it’s a very good collection of Holmes stories that could easily be shuffled into the original canon. 5/5 stars.The Narration: Fred Wolinsky does a great job as the sharp-edged Holmes. His voice for Watson was sometimes a little effeminate which took me a little time to get used to. Perhaps I have watched too many very masculine renditions of Watson lately. His female voices were believable. His greatest strength lies in the little kid voices which he does perfectly. Each character was distinct. 4.5/5 stars.

While the plots were close in spirit to the originals, the editing left some room for improvement. There are several instances where site was used instead of sight and too rather than to or in one case, gate was used in place of gait. In another place, my was used instead of may.

Full of typos, really destroys the mood of the book. Also incredibly simplistic plot devices over and over. Nice settings though.

THE NARRATOR'S ACCENT WAS NOT UNDERSTANDABLE AND I STOPPED LISTENING TO THE BOOK AFTER A SHORT TIME. SHERLOCK HOLMES HAS BEEN MY MOST ENJOYABLE LISTEN, USING IT TO LULL ME TO SLEEP. I have had many stories from several different narrators of Sjerlock Holmes, but this was bad, bad, bad.

This is very much in the Conan Doyle tradition. The cases are not very intricate and there are few surprise endings (after all there is only one Conan Doyle) but nevertheless I enjoyed the read; despite the several typos I encountered.

These are six awesome short stories in the true Sherlock Holmes fashion. If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes than these are for you, and if you love audio books than you just can miss voice actor Fred Wolinsky performing this book, it is so good you will lose yourself and think you are in the room with Sherlock and Watson while they are bantering back and forth on one of their cases. This is truly a book/audio not to be missed, don't be left behind when the game is afoot.

Very good rendering of Sherlock Holmes stories. Real or not they are very much Sherlock Homes stories. Entertaining and interesting. I enjoyed it immensely.