A Study in Scarlet Review
Spoilers Ahead:
So, my first exposure to this case was from Moriarty the Patriot and let me say, I was caught off guard by the LDS reveal. I didn’t know whether to laugh at it for being so exaggerated or be disgusted because this is what people actually believed.
Now, in the context of the story, I say Jefferson Hope was 100% justified. As in this world, I guess Salt Lake City is a surveillance state and Mormon women are . I guess I must take this in the same breath as the T.V. show, Banshee. Where the world that we’re being shown isn’t the real world, and isn’t trying to be the real world, as it is a world where everything is highly exaggerated. Like how the Amish population is shown to be a sort of cult in the show and how the LDS is shown to be a cult in the context of the story.
I like the detail of how since Hope didn’t mind getting caught and merely wanted his revenge (I’m not going to spoil it for you but let me tell you, they do him DIRTY) so in a way, he trumped the world’s greatest detective in the case. As Holmes didn’t do anything to end crime simply because of the fact that Hope would never have reoffended.
My favorite part of the book is probably the end of chapter 5. Where Holmes tells Watson to go to bed and while he goes to sleep, Watson can hear Holmes quietly playing the violin. I don’t know why, but I imagined seeing Holmes playing the violin in a dark room with a blue light shining through a window behind him, illuminating his silhouette. 8/10