The "real" Sherlock Holmes, alive and well in the 21st century? The very idea! And yet the book Holmes Coming suggests the real possibility of such an occurrence. I absolutely love the thought of Sherlock Holmes solving today's crimes while trying to muddle through modern technology and customs. Of course, accepting the premise--that Sir Doyle based his stories on a real detective, and that real detective devised a brilliant method to preserve himself for over 150 years--requires quite a bit of disbelief suspension. So it's perhaps even more critical that the facts be accurate.

Right from the first chapter, I was thrown by some glaring inaccuracies. Dr. Amy Winslow, pediatric surgeon who for some reason spends all her time working in the ER seeing adult cases, tries to resuscitate a mauled detective by--wait for it--trying to shock him with resuscitation paddles when he is clearly flatlining. This is what I consider the #1 error in medical scenes. Shocking asystole does nothing. Even worse, Dr. Winslow tries this twice, and then gives up. Since the brain can survive without oxygen for up to ten minutes, resuscitation typically continues for at least that long (unless it is clearly futile--like, if the head is missing). I'm not entirely sure why the author chose to make Dr. Winslow a pediatric surgeon since she's never actually seen doing surgery, and her descriptions make her sound more like a pediatrician. I understand the idea was to make her a modern Dr. Watson, but it would've made more sense to the story if she'd been an ER doctor, or even a psychiatrist who continually tries to analyze the enigmatic Holmes.

Furthermore, she wants to be a writer, and so the book is told from her narrative. Again, I imagine this was intended to recreate the classic Holmes stories, which were all narrated by Dr. Watson. The problem is, this approach doesn't stand up well in modern literature. Chapters from Holmes's point of view are told "as was recounted to me by Holmes in startling detail", but it makes it difficult to connect with Holmes. And moreover, in some chapters, it jumps to the perspective of other characters, like Zapper. I presuppose this was intended to hide information that Holmes discovered from the reader, but it gets confusing with all the head hopping. And then Dr. Wilson's narrative tone threw me as well. In the first half of the book, she sounds like Holmes in her narration, using advanced vocabulary and formal phrasing that is not at all consistent with her dialogue. Again, I presume this is intended to reflect Watson's style, and maybe even suggest Holmes rubbed off on her, but in the second half of the book, her narration is not nearly as formal.

Additionally, there are long stretches of dialogue between Holmes and Wilson, mostly to give backstory about how Holmes came to decide to preserve himself and about his long history with the Moriarty family. These parts dragged and nearly made me want to quit, but I'm glad I pressed on as the turning point between him and Moriarty Booth was well done and created some excellent tension. The relationship between Holmes and Wilson felt a bit forced and at times more melodramatic than a classic Sherlock Holmes story, with some overly corny lines and exchanges.

But of course what really makes this book shine is when Holmes runs through his masterful deductions, especially when he's just plain wrong due to being unaware of changes in society over the past 150 years. It's clear this is intended to be the first book in a series, and I am curious to know what the future adventures of Holmes and Wilson will be like. The narration, which is a rare recording of multiple authors at the same time, was overall well done, although I was thrown by the fact that Zapper, a teenager, sounded like a 30 or 40 year-old man.

Thank you to the author, Blackstone, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this audiobook in exchange for a fair review.