“A Study in Scarlet” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Review #110
First Mystery of Sherlock Holmes
(On Playaway audio…4.5 hours)

This is the first story Sir Conan Doyle wrote about his famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. In this short novel, Dr. Watson is presented to Holmes as a potential Baker Street roommate. On first meeting Watson, Holmes utters the immortal line, "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive." Doctor Watson, has, indeed, just returned from Afghanistan. With an injured arm and shattered nerves from illness, he has arrived in London, living on a pension and needing to board with somebody, rent prices being as they were in the late nineteenth century.

Thus begins the famous crime-solving partnership of the Holmes and Watson duo.
At first, Dr. Watson is skeptical about Holmes' self professed deductive powers, so Holmes allows him to tag along on a case about which the police have consulted him...the murder of two Americans.
A Study In Scarlet is divided into two parts; the first part consists of the story up until the arrest of the murderer. The second part is a detailed back-story of the murderer's life and motives, previously unexplained. Part two takes the reader across the ocean to the original settlement of Salt Lake City in Utah, and a story of hardship, love, greed, Mormons, and revenge, then…back to London to sort out the explanations.

When I began listening to Part two, I thought someone had made a mistake and was starting a new book! I couldn’t understand why Doyle hadn’t explained how he had deduced the murderer. I thought it was a very abrupt ending! It took some time before the names of some of the players came up, and then I realized he was giving the reader a back story. Very unexpected, but made me happy that the book hadn’t ended so soon.

If I hadn’t already been a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I would have become one with this book!