utter randomonium

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (unabridged audiobook read by David Timson; 4 hrs 45 min on 4 discs): I confess, I was mostly interested in reading this after seeing the episode of the new BBC series Sherlock inspired by it, “A Study in Pink”. (And then I promptly re-watched the episode and understood a whole bunch more of the jokes.) The first part is fairly straightforward, starting with the meeting of Holmes and Watson and following through a couple of murder investigations that appear to be linked. Once they’ve caught the criminal, there’s a huge shift in narrative and suddenly we’re in Utah with evil Mormons. It was almost too random to be offensive, really. This turns out to be the backstory and motive of the killer, but it takes a while before that’s evident. I am hesitant to offer this up as a good introduction to Sherlock Holmes, since it is so dated, but the mystery part of it is actually quite fun. Definitely going to have to pick up some more of Holmes’s adventures.