This particular novel, ironically enough, probably contains less of Holmes than any of the others, with the great sleuth being contained largely to Part I. He is incredibly brilliant, moderately vain, and often impatient with those who are unable to keep up with his rapid deductions.

Sherlock Holmes is described as tall, thin, and reserved, with an aquiline nose and penetrating eyes.

In both cases, the second part is especially compelling.Arguably the most famous fictional character in history, Sherlock Holmes is synonymous with “great detective.” His place as the most brilliant detective in all of literature is challenged only possibly by Agatha Christie’s Poirot. While the two novels use a similar narrative scaffolding, each is unique in its details. While this book may be self-derivative, I still found it engrossing. The second story takes place in a mining town in the United States, in a place insinuated in the first part to be “the valley of fear.” This valley, properly named Vermissa Valley, earned this epithet because it was run by a thuggish group of violent men who used a secret society as a cover for the corrupt gangland-like practices they carried out as “the Scowrers.” This story focuses on a new arrival, McMurdo, who we are led to believe was a gangster in Chicago who fled to this quiet – yet gangster-ruled – place to disappear into the protective company of fellow criminals. While it’s not, strictly speaking, a locked-door mystery, its occurrence inside a moat-enveloped manor house leaves open the possibility of an inside-job, but there is confounding evidence that suggests someone fled the scene. While suicide is quickly eliminated, the clues present mixed signals.

In “Valley of Fear,” the first story involves the gruesome death of a country gentleman in his own home by sawed-off shotgun blast to the face. Both books are arranged into two parts, the first of each is a typical Sherlock Holmes story in which the detective investigates a puzzling crime in England the second skips back in time (and across the Atlantic) to tell a compelling tale that provides motive and context for the first story. This (book seven of nine of the Sherlock Holmes canon) follows a pattern set by the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet.

The valley of fear book