A Study in Scarlet

Dr John Watson, back from the war in Afghanistan with a wound and very little money, is introduced to a strange young man who is looking for someone to share rooms in Baker Street. Within weeks Holmes is called to an empty house where a man lies dead without a mark on him and the word RACHE is written in blood on the wall. The first half solves the crime; the second jumps to the American West and the early Mormon settlers of Utah to tell the story of revenge that led to it.

This short novel of 1887 was Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story, and it introduces his methods, his chemistry, his violin and his friendship with Watson. Laurie Anne Walden reads it alone, in about four hours.