Sherlock Holmes receives a coded message. Unfortunately, he deciphers it much too late. It warned of a murder. A dead man now lies on the floor, at Birlstone House in Sussex, his head blown to pieces. The Scotland Yard have a plausible theory about how the murder may have happened. However, Holmes has a different story to tell, a long and intimidating story indeed, involving Professor Moriarty and having its origins in America.

The Valley of Fear is the fourth and last Sherlock Holmes novel by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was published in 1915 and has never been out of print.

About the Author

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland from where he did his graduation in medicine in 1881. He had started writing and publishing short stories to some acclaim during his student life but it was after the publication of A Study in Scarlet, his first Sherlock Holmes work that he became widely famous. Arguably the best crime fiction character ever, Sherlock Holmes practically made Doyle immortal as a writer. Featuring Holmes he wrote 4 novels and 56 short stories. Doyle was a prolific writer and in addition to his Holmes oeuvre he wrote many other novels and short stories. Among them The Lost World is another great work of fiction.