Robert

Different reader. This one reads very ponderously, as if to a slow child.

Absolutely. I already have several print copies and a few audio books.

Never. See above.

The premise of a Holmes getting senile is interesting. There are three stories and all of them are incomplete. That being so, I wonder why they were told in the first place. There are plenty of unanswered questions. Maybe this is to replicate Holmes' memory loss but, if so, why write this book. Mysteries need a conclusion and there isn't one here.

Bring something to conclusion - even Holmes' death in a relevant situation.

Holmes

Some insight into memory loss, but not in this context.

When discussing all of his associates' deaths, it gets very depressing. Again, maybe realistic, but that's not what I read Sherlock Holmes for.

I like the way the author strings events together. He is especially good when explaining the historical contect of some of the Nazis' legislative actions and showing how they weren't necessarily as radically thought of as we do now after 80 years. He showed how many of the political parties and actors agreed with the actions taken by the Nazis after they got into power. He did well in explaining how their message before coming to power was pretty generic, so that most segments of the population could agree on the broad principles that they espoused. Not until after they got into power did they show their total disregard for anyone who disagreed with them and their ruthlessness in eliminating dissent, segment by segment. It gives meaning to the old saying,

The author's stated intent was to introduce this topic to those who knew nothing. I know some of the topic but have never had it tied together like this book does. The author also dumbed down some of the German phrases like

Does the author research before writing? One of the characters enlists in the (US) Marines and ends up a (US Army) special forces sergeant. What else did he get wrong? This was simple. He may or may not know the foreign legion but who can tell? The narrator is also not very good. His emotional emphasis is often inappropriate. He's English so I can't tell if his pronunciation is wrong or its the English way. Entertaining story, needing some suspension of disbelief.

I haven't written any other reviews but this one needs to be done. I really have no idea what the book is like. The narrator's accent is hard to understand, along with the fact that she misses most inflections that emphasize some parts, mispronounces many words, and doesn't change tone to distinguish male from female, much less individual characters. There is little or no emotional content in the narration. By the time I can figure out a lot of what she is reading, the story has moved on. I can't really get a sense of the book this way.