This exciting story is the first of the Sherlock Holmes detective novels and stories and the beginning of the famed duo with Dr. Watson who faithfully chronicles each episode. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, a consulting 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 colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."