A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

Livia, her friend as well as her sister, thinks that Charlotte behaves like “a foreigner who found native customs baffling and, on occasion, patently ridiculous.” She is like “an interplanetary alien,” which makes it seem to me as if Charlotte has Asperger syndrome. Charlotte, socially awkward and fond of food, does not care at all for society and its rules and formalities. She barely spoke as a child, and when she finally did, her observations were shockingly astute and perceptive, much to her father’s delight. Livia is in her upper 20s and still single, and Charlotte, well, she is quite unusual.

Eldest sister Henrietta is respectably married, but Bernadine has an intellectual disability (most likely meant to be autism) that renders her speechless and isolated, spinning tops and other objects while lost in her own world. She is from a society family, one of the Upper Ten Thousand, but like many such families, finances are problematic.

It’s also a fine mystery.Ĭharlotte Holmes is about 25 years old in 1886. Those familiar with Doyle’s first Holmes mystery will recognize certain traits of Sherlock and plot points in common, but this is a story with something original to say about women, class, justice and independence. Sherry Thomas does an amazing job of reimagining this classic. It’s a fun read with interesting and sympathetic characters, most notably a female Sherlock Holmes. This remix of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet is clever and ingenious.

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas