“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.” ~Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

It is with A Study in Scarlet that Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) established the template for Sherlock Holmes. Four novels and 56 short stories later, Holmes became the yardstick by which all detective/crime fiction was measured. If you are going to investigate the phenomenon that is Sherlock Holmes, it is elementary that you start here at the beginning.
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*Because I have a tendency to gravitate toward the most controversial aspects of everything I read, I feel I must call attention to Doyle’s horribly low opinion of Mormon theology. Part Two of A Study in Scarlet is set in Utah, 1847, and portrays Brigham Young and his settlement party of Latter-day Saints as a malevolent band of murderous cutthroats. The characterizations are so disparaging, so nasty, that even I, an “unbeliever,” started to feel sorry for Mormons.

“…all I said about the [Mormon] band and the murders is historical so I cannot withdraw that, though it is likely that in a work of fiction it is stated more luridly than in a work of history. It's best to let the matter rest" ~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle