As a huge fan of Sherlock’s, this was a pleasant surprise. Meyer brings back the famous consulting detective and his sidekick in a new adventure that could have been published in The Strand. The author introduces the story as a lost manuscript, with the understanding that Holmes and Watson were as real as Houdini. Then, David Robb narrates the story, creating all the different voices and bringing the characters to life. I loved the throwbacks to the original canon, it was fun catching the Easter eggs and figuring out the original source. Even newbies and non-Sherlock fans will enjoy the story. Robb’s audiobook performance gave the two leads and the rest of the supporting male characters distinctive voices. I wasn’t a huge fan of the female voices, but they were different enough that it was not hard to know who was speaking. The plot was clever, entertaining and easy to follow. Much like Sir Arthur’s originals, there are no supernatural elements, and everything is pretty elementary once Holmes explains it. The author never falls into the temptation of modernizing the story and the fact that the mystery is about art made me like it even more. A delight for Sherlock’s fans.
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Highbridge Audio.

A delightful Sherlock Holmes mystery! This is my first time reading a Sherlock story written by another author and I was impressed how well Nicholas Meyer captured the voice of the original stories. I also enjoyed the footnotes in the story added by the author to expand on or explain certain details, as this story is presented as though it is a recently discovered and unpublished manuscript from Watson himself.

The narration is excellent with distinct voices for each character and a variety of accents executed with skill.

The mystery itself is well-crafted: the reader is given enough clues to avoid feeling misled or cheated when the solution is revealed, yet the plot remains twisty and clever enough that it is still difficult to fully solve on your own.

A bonus is I also felt I learned a good bit about art and painting just through listening to the story!

A great, cozy Sherlock mystery!