The Valley Of Fear

Look down the valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of people. Its the Valley of Fear the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from dusk to dawn. Conan Arthur Doyle, The Valley of Fear

The Valley of Fear was the last Sherlock Holmes novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First published in installments as a magazine serial in 1914, it was brought out in a single volume in 1915. The action takes place before the period of "The Final Problem," the story in which Holmes and his archenemy Professor Moriarty apparently plunge to their deaths at Reichenbach Falls.

The story is a straight forward murder mystery only Sherlock Holmes can solve. Called in to assist the police in what seems a straight forward suicide quickly becomes a case of murder, the origins of which spanning back many years prior. Enter the Freemasons, murderous gangs, a community in fear, and a few twists to keep the reader on their toes.