A Study in Scarlet

I kind of wish I could give this 4.5 stars but I guess 4 will have to do. I'm a sucker for a good origin story so “A Study in Scarlet” will always be one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories. I love getting to see how Holmes and Watson met and, in the case of the book, how Doyle initially characterizes Sherlock. I guess he's supposed to be about college age in this which totally threw off how I was picturing him. I've been picturing him as more of a 40-ish gentleman but now I'm not sure. Also, what's the timeline of these stories, do the characters age? Ah well.

I was really surprised to see how close this book was to the BBC adaptation, down to the culprit being a “cab” driver (I suppose cabs were pulled by horses back then though). Of course everything does a complete 180 in the second half and we get the cab driver's entire life story, making him one of the heroes all of the sudden. (I'm pretty sure in the TV show he was just some crazy guy). We didn't get anything like this in the other two compilations/novels I've read so far so I wonder if this is early installment weirdness? Anyway, I didn't dislike the second half but I was a little eager to get back to Holmes and Watson. The book suddenly turns into a survival-action-cult-avenger story which was entertaining, but not what I signed up for. It felt weirdly modern because I literally just watched a True Crime video about the Latter Day Saints and a recent missing person's case they're involved in. For some reason, I've always thought of cults as something that started around the 60s and 70s so I was really surprised to see them show up in a novel written in 1887.

Hope dedicating his life to vengeance felt kind of like a cheesy action-movie plot. Like, what is this, John Wick? Really, I cared less about the mystery and the back-story in this one than I did character interactions. Mainly, I liked seeing Sherlock playing off Lestrade and Gregson and also Watson and Sherlock's getting-to-know-you phase. The scene where Watson trash talks Sherlock's writing without knowing it's his was great, I love how calm and cool Sherlock is in the face of criticism. Watson realizes in this book that Holmes loves being praised (his face flushes and can't stop himself from smiling-too cute!) and I feel like that's why he does it so much in all the stories. What an adorable friendship :) I look forward to continuing on!