Review: A Study in Scarlet
This is the first Sherlock Holmes novella. I’d never read it and decided to fill that hole. It was not entirely what I expected.
I’ve read a bunch of the Holmes short stories and maybe The Hound of the Baskervilles, but by them the formula of a Holmes mystery had gelled into an efficient puzzle and Holmes delivery system. Scarlet is still feeling things out in ways that surprised me.
First, there is the introduction of Watson and Holmes, which was quite fun. I know a bunch of the details but it was fun to see how Conan Doyle established all these. And then we get sucked into a Holmes mystery and watch Holmes do Holmes things. It’s great. Easy to see how this character hooked people and why there’s a whole canon around him.
And then we take a turn to an entirely different setting to kind of show the reader the circumstances that Holmes has deduced. I was quite surprised. More than that, I can see why this style of mystery execution wasn’t for Holmes. Conan Doyle writes it well enough, but I spent the whole section – about half the novella – wanting to get back to Holmes.
It makes for an interesting artifact more than a thrilling read. Still worth a look, probably.
Recommended.