The Valley of Fear

Sherlock Holmes receives a coded message warning of danger to a country gentleman named Douglas, but before he can act, word arrives that Douglas has already been murdered at his moated Sussex manor, his face destroyed by a shotgun blast. Holmes and Watson unpick a locked-house puzzle that proves to reach back across the Atlantic. The novel’s long second half leaves England entirely, flashing back to a coal-mining valley in Pennsylvania ruled by a violent secret society, a story loosely inspired by the real Molly Maguires and the Pinkerton agent who infiltrated them. The last of Doyle’s four Holmes novels, it also gives Professor Moriarty a shadowy hand in the crime. Free PDF and EPUB edition.