The ultimate solution came in ripping each CD as 1 track using a ripping program.
Fill in ONLY Title and Artist and disc #/sequence ala 1/5; 3/5 etc.
Rip in Windows 11 to: Music\Audiobooks\
A file name for the Author will be automatically assigned.
After ripping, go to an MP3Tag editor and give each disc a name of your choosing, Title and Author.
That's all that is really needed, until you add multiple books by the same author.
I set up a separate file for each book in the author folder....
For books that I downloaded using Windows Media Player, I import each CD's tracks into Audacity, combine the tracks into 1,
then export to the Audiobooks folder.
Edit the MP3 tags for each disc with Disc Name, Title and Author.
Delete any other info.
The initial playback issues arose due to inconsistent metadata/MP3 tagging.
This information is user contributed, and seems that no 2 users use the same, consistent format.
For example, one will say "Vile, Impregnated Salt Tablets;" another will say" Impregnated Salt Tablets, Vial," you get the drift.
If the track information did not match EXACTLY to every other one, including spaces, dashes, capitalization, etc, the tracks will NOT play
in order in the SYNC system.............