A Study In Scarlet Review

By deer_moon

A Study in Scarlet is that 1887 mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle that kicks off Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, which is wild because that pair ended up being everywhere. I’ve been meaning to read it for a while, and I spotted the first book at a Salvation Army looking at me like it knew what I’d do, so I grabbed it and jumped in soon after. It’s not very long—just a little over 160 pages—so it’s an easy day or two. The main plot is mostly about a murder, but then it kind of opens up and gets way more intense, with a big chunk of the back half happening in Salt Lake City with a Mormon group. It gives a super broad background and honestly it surprised me. And yeah, it definitely introduces Holmes properly—detective stuff, his whole dynamic with Watson, even the 221B Baker Street details. If it weren’t about Holmes, I feel like I’d probably rate it a bit lower, but the book does a really good job getting you into him and all his little quirks. Plus, with how many Holmes stories there are, I figured at least one of them I’d end up really liking… right?