Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet
Narrated by Andrew Bond
A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes novel, follows Dr. Watson as he takes rooms with a strange new companion in Victorian London.
Watson has just come home from the war in Afghanistan, tired and short on money, when a friend introduces him to Sherlock Holmes, a man who seems to know a stranger's whole history at a glance. The two agree to share rooms at 221B Baker Street, and Watson soon learns what Holmes does for a living: he is a consulting detective, called in by Scotland Yard when a case makes no sense. One turns up almost at once. A man is found dead in an empty house, with no wound on his body and a single word written in blood on the wall. The police are baffled. Holmes is not.
As Holmes works the case, walking the murder scene while the detectives around him miss what is right in front of them, the story turns back in time to the deserts and settlements of the American West, where the roots of the crime took hold years before. It's a story of old wrongs and a long, patient revenge, and it explains exactly why the killer came to London and who he was looking for.
This is the book that introduced Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the pairing at the heart of the modern detective story. It has the locked-room puzzle, the famous deductions, and the fog and gaslight of Victorian London that later mysteries would borrow again and again. It's a natural pick for fans of classic whodunits, Agatha Christie readers, or anyone who likes untangling a case alongside a detective who is always a step ahead.
Andrew Bond reads low and even, in no rush to reach the answer. Let Holmes work through the clues while you sink into the dark and fade out before the case is closed.
