Study in Scarlet

On his return after serving in the Second Anglo-Afghan War as an assistant surgeon, Doctor Watson is looking for a place to live in London. He is introduced a certain Mr Holmes, an eccentric-looking, pipe-smoking gentleman who shows an interest in chemistry and is currently engaged in a test to detect human hemoglobin. What begins as a simple house-sharing enquiry soon turns into a fully fledged “study in scarlet”, a case of blood, murder and betrayal that will transport the reader from the streets of London to the early settlements of Salt Lake City in Utah. First published in 1887, when the author was only twenty-seven years old and still working as a medical practitioner in Portsmouth, this novel introduced to the reading public what would become the most famous pair of sleuths in the world – as well as a number of other iconic characters, such as Lestrade and the “Baker Street Irregulars” – and changed, in the process, the course of crime and detective fiction for ever.