Investigating

Picture by Anna Ristuccia

When I was a young girl I became a regular at the local library. Stacks and stacks of books followed me home and were read in my room and in the garden, and often late at night. If I started a book it was hard to put it down before I had reached the last page, which resulted in many a sleepless night.

I was the hostess for the last book club, and I was wondering what book to choose when a sentence from a book (about Bible study!) came to my mind: "Sherlock  Holmes was known for his brilliant powers of observation".  I had a rather long-lasting affection for criminal novels, and I think I have devoured close to everything be Agatha Christie and a lot of others who I can no longer name, but I had never read the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I decided this was the time, went to the library and picked up "A study in Scarlet".

In this book Dr Holmes meets the peculiar Sherlock Holmes, who involves him in solving a murder mystery that not even the brightest of the London police can figure out. The book brings us through muddy London streets, across the harsh American desert landscape and back again to Europe to unravel a story of love, hate and revenge. The main character is just as fascinating as I hoped for, and I caught myself thinking that I wish I had just some of his skills in reading people and situations. "A study in Scarlet" is the first book about Sherlock Holmes, and the rest are now on my to-read list!