A Study in Scarlet By Arthur Conan Doyle

Title: A Study in Scarlet

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Series: Sherlock Holmes #1

Pages: 127 pages

Format: Hardback/Audiobook

Source: Library/Scribd

My Rating: 4.5 stars

Synopsis

‘There’s a scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.’

From the moment Dr John Watson takes lodgings in Baker Street with the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, he becomes intimately acquainted with the bloody violence and frightening ingenuity of the criminal mind.

In A Study in Scarlet , Holmes and Watson’s first mystery, the pair are summoned to a south London house where they find a dead man whose contorted face is a twisted mask of horror. The body is unmarked by violence but on the wall a mysterious word has been written in blood.

The police are baffled by the crime and its circumstances. But when Sherlock Holmes applies his brilliantly logical mind to the problem he uncovers a tragic tale of love and deadly revenge . . .

My Thoughts

I read this as part of the #CatchUpOnClassics readalong that I am participating in this year. This is one of 6 classics I will be reading for this readalong. I didn’t even realize this was a Sherlock Holmes book until someone mentioned it in my comments. I know very little about Sherlock Holmes but I was excited to read it although I have to admit that I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did.

I have found another classic that I really like guys!! This book was split into two parts. The first part being about the murder case and the second part being about what happened in the past that lead to the recent murders. I will say the second part threw me off at first. I thought I was reading a completely different story but the connections soon came and I loved it.

I actually listened to the audiobook of this while also following along in the book. I really enjoyed the narrator David Timson. I think he did an amazing job voicing the characters. I thought the language was so easy to understand. That might be because the edition I read was published in 1993 but I just loved it.

I can’t wait to read more of the Sherlock Holmes series.