The Valley of Fear

What It's About

The story unfolds in two parts. The first is a classic country-house mystery: Holmes and Watson are drawn to Birlstone Manor after a warning arrives via a coded message from an informant inside Professor Moriarty's criminal organisation, followed swiftly by news of a brutal murder. Holmes and the dogged Inspector MacDonald work to unravel a crime scene that isn't quite what it appears. The second part shifts abruptly to America, years earlier, telling the story of an undercover operative who infiltrates a violent secret society terrorising a Pennsylvania mining valley - and reveals the hidden history behind the murder at Birlstone.

Key Concepts

Like Doyle's first Holmes novel, "A Study in Scarlet", "The Valley of Fear" uses a split structure - a present-day mystery followed by a lengthy flashback that explains its origins. The secret society at the heart of the American section, the Scowrers, was closely modelled on the real-life Molly Maguires, and the undercover plot draws on the real case of Pinkerton detective James McParland. The novel is also notable as the story in which Moriarty's role as the unseen mastermind of London's criminal underworld is most fully developed.

About the Author

Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish physician who turned to writing while building a medical practice, finding far greater success with fiction than with medicine. Knighted in 1902, he became one of the best-known writers of his era and remained a public figure in British life until his death in 1930.