May 16, 2016
MarkBernstein.org
 

A Study In Scarlet

by A. Conan Doyle

Having revisited “Study In Pink”, the first episode of the Gattis & Moffat television series, I realized that I had not read A Study In Scarlet in a long time – perhaps not since high school. It’s an interesting mystery, introducing its unforgettable characters while offering fine in handling London. Conan Doyle is so adept at establishing the time and technology that the reader forgets this was not meant to be historical fiction. The long backstory in early Mormon Utah shows Conan Doyle’s characteristic strengths and weaknesses; it’s conventional melodrama, it’s sometimes stale and sometimes predictable, but it also keeps moving and gets us where we need to go.

It must have been something to meet Sherlock in the pages of The Strand, not knowing that this was going to be the Sherlock Holmes.