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A Study in Scarlet

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Published in 1878, this first Sherlock Holmes story is a curiosity, rather than a finely developed novel. Here Dr. Watson, just released from the British army and recovering from serious wounds from the second Afghan war, meets Sherlock Holmes for the first time. Both have been looking for someone to share the rent--at 221B Baker Street. Holmes, without a "real" career, spends considerable time experimenting in a hospital chemistry lab and interviewing people who come to the apartment. Watson soon discovers that Holmes is a detective consultant, working with police detectives and private detectives alike.

Written before Doyle had fully developed his skills as a mystery novelist, this novel divides in half. In the first part, which begins around 1880, Holmes helps investigate the murder of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland, Ohio, apparently poisoned in an abandoned house. A tall stranger has been seen in the neighborhood, and some clues have been planted at the crime scene. Later, Drebber's traveling companion is killed. Holmes, however, manages to solve both cases by the halfway point in the book.

The second half of the novel flashes back to 1847. John Ferrier, one of twenty-one people in a caravan, is traveling through "an arid and repulsive desert" in the American west when the caravan runs out of food and water. Ferrier and a small girl, the only survivors, search for water until they collapse. Rescued by Brigham Young and a wagon train of Mormons on their way to found their city, Ferrier, in exchange for food and water, agrees to convert and become a good Mormon. Years later, when Ferrier is a successful rancher and Lucy has fallen in love with a Gentile, the elders of the church demand that Ferrier agree to wed Lucy to a member of the church, a decision he resists.

These seemingly unrelated stories eventually overlap, but Doyle's incomplete and inaccurate knowledge of Mormon beliefs show his deliberate attempt to capitalize on the mysteries of the "wild west" and of Mormonism for the sake of his story, now quite dated. The ending consists of Holmes simply ticking off the clues which have led him to solve the murders and capture the murderer, not a dramatic or exciting climax. Watson is seen as a soldier-hero and doctor, and not as a bumbling side-kick to Holmes, who is shown here as a decidedly odd and pompous man, less "clever" than he becomes in time. Fun to read and interesting primarily because it is the first Holmes mystery. Mary Whipple

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