a study in scarlet by sir arthur conan doyle

What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.”ĬSI, Silent Witness and the plethora of similar programs with eccentric consultants to the police – Castle, Numbers, The Mentalist, Bones, all with snappy terse titles – owe a direct debt to, or a genetic link with, the world’s first consulting detective. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-colored houses. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Anthony Horowitz had even referenced them in The Sentence is Death. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and a dozen other variations on stage and screen had paraded these over-and-over. They were utterly familiar in places, especially A Study in Scarlet: the iconic first meeting between Holmes and Watson, the dead body without a mark on it ”rache” painted on the wall beside the body the Baker Street irregulars. It was a strange experience listening to these. So what better than to slip back into the familiar territories and iconic characters – and the velveteen narration of Stephen Fry – of Sherlock Holmes.

That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.” But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants.

Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I also noted that, of the books released around January, many seemed to veer towards the fantasy genre… and I have no objection to fantasy – much of my reading and therefore reviews celebrate fantasy writing – but just didn’t fancy it. The cold dark days of January, which this year were livened up by the joys of an two-day Ofsted inspection at work and four observations, cry out for reading time and little inspiring remained. I often find – as I mentioned in my previous post – a post-Christmas lull in my reading. How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? The Sign of Four, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A study in scarlet by sir arthur conan doyle