The Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 2

By: Will Murray

Narrated by: Charles Featherstone

Sherlock Holmes confronts the unknown in ten baffling tales that test his formidable mental powers, as well as his unshakable conviction that the world is a sane and rational place.

From the enigma of spontaneous human combustion to the possibility that coins minted during the era of supposedly mythical Atlantis survived into Victorian times, London’s premier consulting detective is tested and tried as never before, as his investigations cross the path of Algernon Blackwood‘s famed psychic physician, Dr. John Silence.

Will Holmes's firm belief in an exclusively scientific reality hold––or must he at last give ground to the detested possibility that supernatural forces operate at will, unseen and only suspected?

CONTENTS:
Introduction
The Singular Problem of the Extinguished Wicks
The Mystery of the Spectral Shelter
The Problem of the Surrey Samson
The Uncanny Adventure of the Hammersmith Wonder
The Repulsive Matter of the Bloodless Banker
The Adventure of the Abominable Adder
The Adventure of the Sorrowing Mudlark
The Adventure of the Emerald Urchin
The Adventure of the Expelled Master
The Conundrum of the Questionable Coins

©2023 William Murray (P)2023 MX Publishing

Strange Cohorts

A wonderful collection of stories, which features Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson involve in rather unusual adventures. In several of the stories they appear to work with Doctor John Silence, and have an unusual case.

WATSON THE SNUFFALIFFAGUS

What the HELLLLLLLL / HECK was the production team thinking when they allowed this narrator to make an absolute fool of himself and take the act of turning off listeners to a science of the highest order? First off, a good narrator is capable of the gamut of human voices. Second, he / she does not need to and knows better than to, pick a voice, for a main character no less, that is so unnatural and requires such oral acrobatics it’s employment is unsustainable at best and limiting to their livelihood by damaging the vocal box, at worst. Holy run on sentence Batman. Anyway… something to think about.

Interesting Mysteries

Good collection of interesting and clever stories. The performance was uneven - the narration and the voicing of Holmes were very good, but I must admit that the voicing of Watson was disappointing for me.

A bit too much Silence

Specifically, Dr John Silence. While he is an intriguing character, he took over too much of the narrative for my taste. I am glad to have been introduced to him, but I would rather he had featured in no more than one story.

As for the reader, he has three strikes against him. First, his vocabulary is simply not up to the task of reading a good Holmes story. The average person is this modern era uses perhaps 5000 words, while the writers of the Holmesian era (and their imitators) use perhaps 10000 or more. The more advanced and unusual vocabulary words in English cannot be “sounded out” successfully. One needs to look them up, and learn the correct pronunciation.

The second strike, as I have said before, is the way he voices Dr. Watson. I still hate it. The third strike is the equally annoying way he voices Dr. Silence. The ridiculous sing-song is like fingernails on the chalkboard of my soul.

Still and all, this is not bad. If you don’t expect too much from it, you may enjoy it.

Another exceptional book from Will Murray

This is the second volume of the Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes stories. Again the author takes a classic character and supplies them with an appropriate story, keeping to canon personality traits while presenting new and bizarre mysteries to solve. I, personally found them all excellent and in keeping with the Holmes I am familiar with.

My only quibble was with the narration of Dr Watson. Several times his character voice was over done with a "mouth full of marbles" kind of result. In my opinion he tried to mimic Nigel Bruce a bit too closely.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed the book and would recommend it without hesitation to anyone interested in Sherlock Holmes or pulp adventures in general.