Amelia Watersfield is a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. It's 1892 and the stories are presently being serialized in newspapers throughout London. Swept up in the craze, Amelia founds, with her three friends, the Lady's Amateur Sleuth Society. They don’t really do much. But they love the Sherlock Holmes stories, the fantasy and thrill of mystery and detection. Fiction blurs with fact when a real life crime occurs in Amelia's own home. Her father’s favorite ancient artifact, a bust of Nefertiti that also has sentimental value, is stolen. The father is devastated by the loss. He's one of those doddering, senile parents that are practically a prerequisite in romances, but actually Amelia’s relationship with her father, in which she takes care of him more than the other way around, doesn’t seem too forced or annoying.

And I actually like Amelia herself. She's a very sunny, bright, happy person, but I don't want to strangle her after the first page. For all her youthful cheerfulness, she’s just barely saved from being a one dimensional Pollyanna by the genuine friendships and relationships that surround her – such as her love for her father and her three friends of the Lady’s Amateur Sleuth Society. They each represent a set character type, but their friendship still manages to be compelling. Though it is very hard for me to accept that Amelia’s a 24 year old spinster. More like a silly, but endearingly so, teenager or something. Even though her naïveté is shown up repeatedly throughout the book, even though her optimism and blind faith in the goodness of others does get her in trouble a couple of times, she’s not exactly stupid. She always tries to learn from her mistakes, so A for effort I guess. And she actually proves herself very intelligent and useful when it comes to trying to solve the case of the missing Nefertiti bust.

Enter Colin Brindley, the private inspector called in to help recover the artifact. He’s a stiff upper lip, repressed sort, lonely and gruff, and doesn’t think much of the case itself. Formerly of Scotland Yard, he’s trying to strike out and found his own investigative agency. He’s also something of a scientist in that he’s got some “research” going on, trying to devise a better way of more accurately identifying criminals – what will one day be known as fingerprinting. He condescends to Amelia and the case at first, but he can’t afford to turn away clients at this stage, so he resigns himself to going through the motions of what he perceives as a farce. He certainly doesn’t want Amelia’s help, but she’s nothing if not determined, and it’s fun to see how she gradually works him over to her side and gets what she wants. She’s a bit star struck by the good detective, who, in her eyes, seems like her hero Sherlock come to life.

Things progress beyond first impressions and infatuation, fortunately, and Amelia and Colin’s relationship is interesting to follow in this respect. Colin has some baggage – he’s scared of his feelings and all that rot, afraid of being a legitimate Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde and going crazy with his passions if he lets himself feel anything at all. It sounds a bit extreme and melodramatic, and it is, but he's so befuddled and distressed with regards to his growing obsession with Amelia, and strives so valiantly but helplessly to fight his feelings for her, that I'm completely won over by him. He's a unique character in his own right, and he and Amelia are very cute together. And Amelia, for her part, is also very cute in how excited she is be involved in a real live detective mystery. They have chemistry, communicate well together, and make a good team, each complimenting the other nicely. I would have liked the book even better if Colin’s baggage had been handled with a little more finesse. The resolution to his issues with his hang-ups was too swift and pat, and the whole fear of his feelings thing seemed very simplistic, even dumbed down. Besides this issue, though, A Study in Scandal was enjoyable, and even had me laughing at some parts. A very quick, light read. ( )