Sherlock Holmes Elegy for a Baskerville

A Sherlock Holmes Resurgent Mystery

De: J. B. Varney

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Holmes is back and…the game is still afoot! The year is 1899 and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are at home at 221B Baker Street as London endures its coldest winter in memory. Then comes a telegram from Sir Henry Baskerville, Baronet, filled with fearful premonitions and a supposed sighting of the ghost of Jack Stapleton, the evil mastermind behind “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, upon the moor. This is followed immediately by reports declaring the death of the Devonshire Baronet in a “tragic accident”. Were Sir Henry’s words to Holmes and Watson mere hysteria? Was the tragic accident really a brutal murder? Had Jack Stapleton, that devil of Dartmoor, truly returned from his grave in the Great Grimpen Mire?
Only Sherlock Holmes can help and soon he is upon the bitterly cold, windswept moor, the human bloodhound on the trail for truth again. In J. B. Varney’s “Resurgent Mysteries” the game is afoot and Holmes and Watson will soon find themselves in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an evil madman. Mr. Varney, himself a descendant of the Baskerville Line, offers the reader the first breathtaking adventure of his Resurgent Mystery Series. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are back in all their Victorian glory. Enjoy!

Can not stand virtual voice recordings

The story is good but the virtual voice is awful!!!! So monotonous and boring it just about put me to sleep at work. I guess it’s good for listening when you need sleep. I won’t be listening to anymore virtual voice recordings unless I can’t sleep for some reason. It’s a shame because I like the way it’s written and I would definitely recommend if some actual person narrated it.

Errors in pronunciation

Virtual voice will never be a favorite and I avoid the female and black virtual voices because they grate on my ear. But hey it’s free and I’ll listen to the male virtual voice. The mispronunciations still bother me.

Fun return to Baskerville Hall & the Grimpen Mire

This was an excellent edition story wise to the family of Holmes novels. I loved getting to return to Baskerville Hall for another well crafted whodunnit. I really had no gripe with the story itself, but I would have preferred to have listened to it read by a human with a British accent. The virtual voice in this narration wasn’t terrible. It was better than most I’ve heard. The only real issue I had with the virtual reading was in the dialogue especially when characters were carrying on extended conversations with back and forth short responses. It gets very choppy and the more characters involved in the conversation the more difficult it got to follow who was talking. Alas, the book was free, so I’m not going to complain too much about it. It was passable for a free listen especially when it’s attached to really good story.

Surprisingly enjoyable

I say surprisingly because many Holmes books by modern day writers disappoint. But this one captures the flavour of the original Holmes. The focus is on solving the crime and dealing with credible turn of events. The narration is more than acceptable. You couldn’t tell it is a machine talking. Crisp clear diction and a neutral accent requiring no effort on the part of the listener to work out what’s being said is preferable to mediocre human narrators who often overdo local accents as they attempt (unsuccessfully) to project multiple voices. All in all, a good read.