[.ca] A Study in Scarlet (ISBN 9626342498)

From Amazon.com:
Arthur Conan Doyle's Study in Scarlet is the first published story involving the legendary Sherlock Holmes, arguably the world's best-known detective, and the first narrative by Holmes's Boswell, the unassuming Dr. Watson, a military surgeon lately returned from the Afghan War. Watson needs a flat-mate and a diversion. Holmes needs a foil. And thus a great literary collaboration begins. Watson and Holmes move to a now-famous address, 221B Baker Street, where Watson is introduced to Holmes's eccentricities as well as his uncanny ability to deduce information about his fellow beings. Somewhat shaken by Holmes's egotism, Watson is nonetheless dazzled by his seemingly magical ability to provide detailed information about a man glimpsed once under the streetlamp across the road. Then murder. Facing a deserted house, a twisted corpse with no wounds, a mysterious phrase drawn in blood on the wall, and the buffoons of Scotland Yard--Lestrade and Gregson--Holmes measures, observes, picks up a pinch of this and a pinch of that, and generally baffles his faithful Watson. Later, Holmes explains: "In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.... There are few people who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result." Holmes is in that elite group. Conan Doyle quickly learned that it was Holmes's deductions that were of most interest to his readers. The lengthy flashback, while a convention of popular fiction, simply distracted from readers' real focus. It is when Holmes and Watson gather before the coal fire and Holmes sums up the deductions that led him to the successful apprehension of the criminal that we are most captivated. Subsequent Holmes stories--The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes--rightly plunge the twosome directly into the middle of a baffling crime, piling mystery upon mystery until Holmes's denouement once more leaves the dazzled Watson murmuring, "You are wonderful, Holmes!" Generations of readers agree. --Barbara Schlieper

Wonderfully entertaining:
It is 1878 and Doctor John Watson, his health damaged by his experiences with the British Army in Afghanistan during the Second Anglo-Afghan War, is looking for lodgings in the great city of London. It seems fortuitous, when a mutual friend introduces him to another who needs someone to share costs on a suite on Baker Street, but this other man is quite an eccentric. Sherlock Holmes has bent his life and education towards turning himself into the premier detective. Watson can hardly credit Holmes's claims of what a first-class detective can do. But, when a note arrives from a Scotland Yard detective, inviting Holmes to consult on a particularly mysterious murder, Watson soon finds himself carried along by Holmes, watching his new friend's powers unravel a seemingly inscrutable knot. The game is afoot, and Holmes needs to solve a murder, and bring a murderer to justice. This fascinating book was first published in 1887, and was the very first Sherlock Holmes story. In it we get to see the first meeting of Holmes and Watson, and hear Holmes explain his methods in detail. If you are a fan of murder mysteries, then this is definitely a book that you should not miss. The center part of this story revolves around the actions of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. Author Arthur Conan Doyle had a tendency to "wing" the details of his story, and his treatment of the Mormons shows a certain carelessness in how he presented them. Therefore, if you are a Mormon, you will most likely find this book offensive. But, that said, this is a wonderfully entertaining story that is sure to please most every mystery fan. And, if you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes, then you must read this book! It's great.

Great first half...:
This is the first Sherlock Holmes novel and the perfect place to begin reading his literature. Forget about the movie clichés of Holmes and Watson - here you meet them for the first time. Watson - far from a bumbling fool - is a military doctor just returned from Afghanistan. An old acquaintance reluctantly suggests looking for a room with a school chum of his who is a bit odd. We first meet Sherlock Holmes as a graduate student. He's very brilliant - the only thing is nobody can figure out what he is studying or what he does. The two chums become roommates and the rest is history. Seeing Sherlock Holmes anew, he is reminiscent of a positive version of Hannibal Lecter. Both of them are able to detect anything about a person at a glance - or a whiff. Each have encyclopedic knowledge of medicine, psychology, and everything else you can think of, and both are intellectually vain. Sherlock likes to show off and is downright childish in taking pleasure in how clever he is. The book starts off great - introducing the characters and getting right to the heart of the matter. It continues at a nice place until the half-way mark where Conan Doyle (who had not yet mastered the art of the novel) interrupts the dramatic action for a flashback. That aside, it is still a great read and you can probably get done with it in one sitting. I HIGHLY recommend the Vintage Classics edition with an introduction by Ann Perry and footnotes, the latter proved an invaluable addition.

First and best!:
This is the first Sherlock Holmes story, and in many ways it is the best! Sherlock succeeds in unraveling the mystery of a murder there in London, whose root causes go all the way back to Salt Lake City in the US. No Holmes fan should be without this book!

Dr Watson, I'd like you to meet Mr Sherlock Holmes!:
As Agatha Christie's "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" introduced a grateful reading public to Hercule Poirot, perhaps the second best known fictional detective of all time, Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet" marked the debut appearance of the acknowledged master of detection, the one and only Sherlock Holmes! John Watson, a medical doctor recently retired from the British military to recover his health and recuperate from wounds received in Afghanistan, is looking to stretch his limited budget by finding another gentleman with whom he can share accommodation. When a mutual friend introduced him to Sherlock Holmes, one might slyly suggest that the game was afoot and the rest, as they also say, became history. Already characteristically melancholy and moody, a jaded Holmes, who labeled himself the world's only consulting detective, is invited by Scotland Yard's Lestrade and Gregson to assist in the investigation of a baffling pair of murders. With "A Study in Scarlet", Doyle is clearly new to the craft of writing mysteries and the great detective's debut outing suffers from characteristic first novel and new character jitters. The style itself is markedly different from everything that follows in the Holmes canon with the story being told from a third-party perspective. The background to the mystery is revealed through the mechanism of a flashback to the western USA at the time of the Mormon migration to Utah. Feedback from the reading public must have been immediate and - we'll have to hand it to Doyle - he must have been a quick learner. Watson was thereafter appointed official narrator and diarist to the master and Doyle never looked back. I leave it to others smarter than I to judge whether or not Doyle's historical characterization of the Mormons is justified or accurate! Suffice it to say, that the mystery is entertaining but the details are, quite frankly, entirely unimportant beside the overwhelming fact that this was the first time the world heard the name "Sherlock Holmes". It took Doyle only a few pages for example to treat us to an aphorism that we would come to hear over and over again, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence." This novel is a cornerstone in the annals of crime fiction, an extremely important piece of the history of English literature and a darned good read! Enjoy it! Paul Weiss

A great detective makes his first appearance:
The book tells the story of how Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson came to be partners and details their first murder case. Like every other conscious person in the western world, I have always been aware of Holmes' titanic status in our popular culture, but this is actually the first story about him that I've ever read. It's very entertaining to follow as A. Conan Doyle introduces the various facets of the Holmes legend: we meet Gregson and Lestrade, watch Holmes and Watson take up lodgings at 221B Baker Street, and are introduced to Holmes' violin playing, pipe smoking, snuff addiction, and, of course, his incredible powers of deduction, which are a marvel to all that surround him. Watson's musings on Holmes' nature are often quite humorous as he attempts to figure out this eccentric individual. The mystery itself is quite good. Many have remarked on how the story derails with its lengthy digression to the back-story of the murder, which occurred in Utah. This part of the story is sure to offend Mormons, who are here portrayed as a cultish fascist state that will resort to officially sanctioned murder to accomplish its ends. Doyle appears to have been reflecting the prejudice of his time, and this is a very unfortunate and disappointing aspect of the novel. However, if you can look past that, perhaps by imagining that they are some fictional cult, this section of the book is quite effective and suspenseful in its own way. However, the major strength of the story is, of course, Holmes himself. I think that Doyle quickly realized this and focused on Holmes much more closely in later stories.