The very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet was also the first of Conan Doyle's books to be published. His two creations, Holmes, the master of the science of detection and Watson, the great detective's faithful companion, are immediately in fine form. The mystery itself, its solution plucked unerringly by Holmes from the heart of Victorian London, proves to be the inevitable consequence of a tragedy of the American West. The story is harrowing in its alternating hope and despair, although Holmes himself was later to complain that the book `produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid'.

空き家で見つかったアメリカ人男性の死体。外傷はまるでないのに、その顔は恐怖と苦痛にゆがみ、現場には血痕と、そして血で書かれた謎のメッセージが残されていた。男性の死因は何なのか?彼が持っていた女性ものの指輪は何を示すのか?名探偵ホームズと、その相棒ワトソン。世界的に有名なこの二人の最初の出会いと、まだ息の合わない二人が、初めて一緒に手がけた事件を描いた長編。