My biggest gripe with this audiobook is a minor detail that nonetheless reduced this from a 4 start to a 3 star read for me.

The strange reluctance to kill people.
The story is about top-secret government projects and black ops missions on the highest level. But most people involved apart from the evil baddy bad guy follow a strange kind of code of honor of not killing unnecessarily or accepting defeat and giving up after one failed attempt. You can probably imagine the kind of "code of honor" I mean just from that.
It felt completely out of place and robbed the story of any kind of believability. It's a humorous tale that doesn't take itself entirely seriously but secret private black ops contractors generally being honorable just stretches my suspension of disbelief too far. Especially considering how much care the author has taken with basically all other details to stay as realistic as possible.

It was a bit too obviously silly at times for my taste but I generally enjoyed this a lot more than I expected.
Complex, flawed, and interesting Characters. Well-done character development. A plot that was maybe a little too predictable but well-executed.
The story had very little substance which is kind of the fault of the premise in itself. There is very little sherlock holmsing going on either even though the author can't let his holmes gimmick go for even a minute but it seems like the second book might offer more in that regard.
The sherlock intelligence mechanic is strongly inspired by the Sherlock TV series that started in 2010 but is only usable once a day for 5 minutes. A lot of this book is tbh.
I will probably check out the second book.

(One weird quirk that stood out to me way too strongly was how the author used the same kind of joke about animals "defecating" twice in a short time and without it being a reference. And it wasn't funny the first time already. The book doesn't try for the most sophisticated humor but "haha poopoo" was very lame even in context. Idk, came across to me as extremely out of place so I wanted to mention it somewhere.) ( )

Fun expansion of the Sherlock Holmes universe ( )

This is written very Drew Hayes style from his Fred the Vampire Accountant series. Although an enjoyable read, I found that I really did not care too much about the characters. ( )

Drew Hayes is so good at creating fun, humorous, and light stories that are just easy to listen to. I'm enjoying these Audible Originals stories he's made, and the two or three person cast has worked really well so far. Just enough variety to tell characters apart but still feel cohesive.

In this one, I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Watson and Sherman. On Watson's part at least it was very friendly and understanding, and I enjoyed the story from his perspective. And Sherman had some truly, ridiculously hilarious outbursts. I'm looking forward to the sequel. ( )

This is one of those cases where I took a chance on a book based on liking the only other work I've read by the author and that it had been given positive reviews by a couple friends. I am so glad I did. The Case of the Damaged Detective by Drew Hayes is a great re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes with a scifi/thriller twist and a healthy dose of comedy.

Someone dumped a biological weapon into a nightclub killing all but one man who woke up with no memory of his past calling himself Sherman, an off the charts IQ and believing himself to be the descendant of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes. Naturally the government wants to study Sherman's newfound genius and needs to transfer him to a different facility. Assigned to the task is agent code-name Watson. Watson is in for a more difficult than expected task as the government aren't the only ones looking to study the survivor's brain.

Sherman and Watson are a great odd couple. Sherman's condition has given him a superiority complex where he disdains the common man. What Sherman lacks in people skills he makes up for with his quick insights into everything going on around him. This leads to some hilarious conversations that would be utterly horrifying to hear in real life, though I'm right there with him on his logic to why cats secretly rule the world. As we grow to understand the nature of Sherman's condition it's easy to sympathize with the guy as he attempts to manage not going insane while staying relatively functional. Watson is an extremely competent special agent with a high level of paranoia and severe trust issues due to both his chosen profession and his recent past. Dealing with Sherman's unique requirements forces Watson to leverage his agent training in creative ways. It was great seeing these two unlikely companions grow into a good working relationship and friendship by the end.

I suspect enjoyment of this book will depend on how well you tolerate Sherman's quirks. I enjoyed it and found him entertaining though I can see how someone would find him incredibly irritating.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Scott Aiello. Aiello does a wonderful job bringing the characters to life.

This was such a fun listen. The series has lots of potential. I'll be rotating the second book into my audio cycle soon. ( )