The Valley of Fear

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Book 7 in the Sherlock Holmes series.

First published 1915

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Sherlock Holmes receives a ciphered warning from Porlock, an informer inside Professor Moriarty’s organisation, that John Douglas of Birlstone Manor is in danger. Before Holmes can act, Douglas is found shot in a locked room at his moated Sussex house. A missing wedding ring, a card marked “V.V. 341”, a concealed bicycle and conflicting testimony lead Holmes, Watson and Inspector MacDonald towards a murder designed to disguise both the victim’s identity and the killer’s escape.

The second half moves to Vermissa Valley, Pennsylvania, in 1875. Jack McMurdo joins a violent lodge of “Scowrers” led by Boss McGinty, an organisation based on the Molly Maguires and sustained by intimidation, political influence and murder in a coal-mining district. The arrival of a Pinkerton detective operation explains the Birlstone crime decades later, while Moriarty’s shadow prevents the case from ending with simple justice. Published in book form in 1915, The Valley of Fear is the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel.