This is, I’m fairly certain, my fourth time to read Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet in the last five decades or so, but I don’t remember ever enjoying it more than I did this time around. Perhaps that’s due to my by now longterm familiarity with the Sherlock Holmes character, or maybe it’s because I appreciate different aspects of mystery writing than I did when I first began to read that genre so regularly. Probably a bit of both.
I’m always on the lookout for a good, solid mystery, one that challenges me to recognize the bad guy before the author gets around finally to exposing him near the end of the story. That I seldom come up with the correct answer, if I come up with an answer at all, does not discourage me from continuing to try. Needless to say, the author has to play by the rules, giving me a fair chance to figure things out for myself – no withholding of key pieces of evidence that the fictional detective has access to – if I’m ever going to read him again.
Doyle impressed me from the beginning (this is the introduction of the Sherlock Holmes character) as an author who would play fair even though his fictional detective would likely know exactly who the criminal was long before story’s end. Holmes, being the deductive genius he is, would always rather easily identify the proper suspect early on, but would continue to give clues to the reader as he worked to prove his theory beyond a doubt so that a strong case could be successfully prosecuted. So the pressure was always on the reader to catch up.
Sherlock Holmes arrives upon the literary scene a flawed genius, someone whose personal failings the reader can identify with while, at the same time, being awed by the man’s astounding genius. No one will ever get more from walking around a crime scene than Sherlock Holmes gets, but the rest of us get to share the fun of watching all the professional crime fighters first scoff at Sherlock’s almost immediate conclusions before they end up begging for his help.
A Study in Scarlet is the origin story that brings Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes together for the first time. Watson is in need of a reasonably priced London apartment and Sherlock is looking for someone to share a flat with; fate brings them together in the person of a mutual friend trying to do Watson and Holmes a simultaneous favor. Watson, a war invalid, desperately needs something to shake him up before he falls into a permanent state of depression and aimlessness. Holmes, on the other hand, enjoys mesmerizing people with his powers of deduction, and a man like Watson, one who does not try to hide his appreciation of Holmes’s skills, makes for a perfect match. Both men find a new friend just when they need one most.
The mystery here is a solid one, but it’s secondary. A Sherlock Holmes book is about Holmes and Watson, and the friendship that became so much fun to watch from afar.
