'Dr Watson, Mr Sherlock Holmes,' said Stamford introducing us... and with these words the world is also introduced for the first time to the great detective and his indefatigable assistant. A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887, the first of Conan Doyle's full-length Holmes novels. It plunges us straight into the dark world of an unsolved murder in Victorian London, which has links to the American West and the Mormons. Holmes displays his powers to solve 'the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life.'