A Study in Scarlet is the beginning of the great and mysterious Sherlock Holmes. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, an amateur detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet": "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it." Filled with romance, murder, tragedy, and suspense, the world's most renowned detective begins his literary existence in the most fantastic of ways.