Surprisingly Excellent
This man had such an incredibly interesting life. I was expecting to hear mainly about his Sherlock Holmes stores, and we do get that but so much more. He covers his youth in a poor family, his attendance at two schools for boys, his medical training, his service on a whaling ship as a medical assistant, his service as a doctor during the Boer War in South Africa, his two happy marriages, his writing of books of nonfiction history, his visit to the front during World War I where his son was serving, and his experiments with clairvoyance as he came to accept that life continues after death. What was interesting about Sherlock Holmes is that he based that character on a professor he had at the boys’ school who was so adept at knowing things about people based on clues he picked up from their appearance, speech, etc. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is an excellent writer, and it had me looking forward to listening to more of this book each day. The narration is pitch perfect by award-winning narrator Simon Vance (also known here as Robert Whitfield). Highly recommended.