I decided to interrupt my mission of reading all of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels chronologically in order to check out one of the pioneering works of the genre. I’m talking about A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which, of course, is the novel that first introduced Sherlock Holmes to the reading world. Even though I love mysteries, I’d never actually read a Sherlock Holmes book before, so I was looking forward to this one. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but it was still a pretty interesting read.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The novel is divided into two parts, with the first one being taken from the memoirs of Dr. Watson, who, as we all know, ends up being roommates with Holmes. As the story opens, Watson has just returned from the war and is looking for a place to stay. A friend of his says he knows of another man who’s looking for a roommate, and offers to take Watson around to meet him later on. Watson agrees.

That other young man turns out to be Sherlock Holmes. After getting to know one another a bit, the two men decide that they’ll be a good fit as roommates. They take a flat at 221B Baker Street, an address that every mystery aficionado knows.

Once established at their new place, Watson notices that Holmes receives a lot of strange visitors. He learns that these people go to Holmes for help solving various mysteries. It turns out that Holmes possesses keen observational powers and excels at deductive reasoning. As a result, he can often solve cases just by listening to all the details involved.

In fact, the police often come to Holmes for help when they’re stumped, which is what happens when they discover the body of Enoch Drebber in an abandoned house in Brixton. There are a few clues at the scene, but nothing that can point the detectives in the right direction. Once Holmes arrives at the house, however, he notices several things that the police overlooked. Then, using a woman’s gold wedding band found near the body as bait, he tries to flush out the killer through a newspaper ad.

That ruse works to a certain extent, as the killer sends an accomplice in his place. Holmes follows the man (who arrived at the house dressed as an old woman), and from there learns all he needs to discover the true identity of the killer.

In the second part of the book, the scene shifts to a Mormon community in Utah. It turns out we’re getting background information about the killer (Jefferson Hope) and his victims. We learn that Hope had been tracking his victims for years and that this was a revenge killing carried out because Drebber and Joseph Strangerson (the other victim) were responsible for the deaths of Hope’s true love and her father back in Utah.

My Reaction: I liked Part One a great deal, and enjoyed getting my first look at the most famous literary detective on the planet. The mystery was interesting, and although Doyle didn’t play fair with the clues (it has been pointed out numerous times that there’s absolutely no way for readers to solve the crime regardless of how carefully they read the story), I still found this portion to be intriguing.

But I hated the scene shift in Part Two. Going back to Utah slowed the action to a crawl, and made me wonder if the two stories were even connected at all. There was no indication that Part Two represented Hope’s backstory, and it wasn’t until his name was mentioned well into the second part that I even realized Part Two was important. Had the flashback been handled differently, I’m sure I would have liked this book a whole lot more.

Anyway, despite its numerous flaws I’m still glad I read A Study in Scarlet and do recommend it to mystery lovers, mostly because of the fact that this was such a pioneering book. Check it out sometime to see how the Holmes-Watson connection got started!