A Study of ‘A Study in Scarlet’

‘A Study in Scarlet’ is the debut Sherlock Holmes story. It is a good reminder of several truths…

The plot of how things came to be is usually thicker than we superficially assume. This does not just pertain to criminal matters. There is always tragedy behind crimes which are tragic in themselves, as criminals are tragically disturbed, with trouble in mind, which is why they resort to crime. In this sense, they need our empathy and understanding more, even if they appear unrepentant, to not deserve so. In fact, counter-intuitively, the more unrepentant they are, the more tragic they are.