Although Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, he was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays, romances, poetry, and non-fiction. In A Study in Scarlet Sherlock Holmes tackles a gruesome mystery that begins with the murder of a girl and her lover in Utah, spreads to the capital cities of Europe, and reaches a fatal climax in England.