- Unknown Binding
- ASIN: B000WXV9FK
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is probably my favourite Holmes yarn. It is a book of two halves . The first concerns the few days either side of a murder and is full of masterful clue cracking - as is our heroes speciality! The second explains the "murderous event" as having it's genesis far back in time and far away from sleepy English countryside it occured in. A wonderful intertwining of the macro and the micro!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I liked this book a lot and it's right up there behind The Sign of Four as the second best Sherlock Holmes novel. Though it's well known that Conan Doyle was growing tired of the character by this point.
The story is of a brutal murder in a mansion house in the English countryside. There's not much sense-making evidence to work on so Holmes and Watson go down to investigate along with Scotland Yard and the local police. Sure enough, Holmes solves the case rather quickly and all is revealed. But it's here that Conan Doyle uses the same split narrative he used in A Study in Scarlet. The story jumps far back in time and details the long, sinister plot leading up to the murder in the mansion. It's a good story and quite addictive. But I'm afraid I saw the plot twist coming (though it's an imaginative surprise) and only because there were no small revalations at any point, therefor I knew I big 'un was coming and deduced the logical conclusion.
And is it just me or is there a major anachronism in the story? Holmes speaks of Moriarty as if he is still alive. But didn't he chuck him of the Reichenbach falls and watch him fall to his death? Unless this story is set before then. And who is this mysterious Porlock? It was never cleared up. Perhaps in a future story eh?
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The last of the four complete Sherlock Holmes novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Valley of Fear gives the reader two plots for the price of one. More accustomed to writing short stories than well-developed novels, Doyle creates two story lines, only loosely connecting them. He then throws Moriarty, the arch-villain, into the mix, though Moriarty was killed off in a previous novel.
In the first plot, which directly involves Sherlock Holmes, a letter warns, in code, that something dreadful will happen at Birlstone, an ancient manor house surrounded by a forty-foot moat. Before Holmes can act, however, the owner, Jack Douglas, is found shot to death, his face destroyed in the blast from a sawed-off shotgun. Douglas was an American, and the nature of his death and the weapon "prove" to the local police that the killer was also an American. As Holmes investigates, with the help of Scotland Yard, the mystery deepens. Douglas always raised the drawbridge at night, the moat was too big to leap, and there were no strangers in the house. Gradually, Holmes uncovers Douglas's background in America.
In the second plot, a group of coal miners belonging to a secret society welcome a new member, Jack McMurdo, someone accused of murder in Chicago who needed to escape to a place where no one knew him. His lodge has recommended that he go to the Vermissa plain and "the Valley of Fear," and see Boss McGinty, the Bodymaster of the lodge there. McGinty and his men wreak havoc on the community when they believe injustices have occurred. Seemingly above the law, they have avoided being caught, though rumor has it that a Pinkerton man has been sent to unmask the members of the group. Holmes plays little or no part in this whole section.
The two plots have seemingly little in common, except that the dead man from Part I is branded with the mark of the lodge of miners. The second part, about these miners, suggests the motivation for the murder of Douglas in the first part. It is too bad that Doyle did not separate these two stories, since the story of the miners, though not involving Holmes, could have been developed as a powerful "one-off." It is a story filled with all the ingredients of great fiction--even including a love story--a dramatic and relevant mystery with connections to the social issues of the day. For anyone interested in watching a writer try to bridge the gap between short stories and novels, this "novel," though fun, shows the weaknesses of using two plots with too little integration of ideas. Mary Whipple
In the first plot, which directly involves Sherlock Holmes, a letter warns, in code, that something dreadful will happen at Birlstone, an ancient manor house surrounded by a forty-foot moat. Before Holmes can act, however, the owner, Jack Douglas, is found shot to death, his face destroyed in the blast from a sawed-off shotgun. Douglas was an American, and the nature of his death and the weapon "prove" to the local police that the killer was also an American. As Holmes investigates, with the help of Scotland Yard, the mystery deepens. Douglas always raised the drawbridge at night, the moat was too big to leap, and there were no strangers in the house. Gradually, Holmes uncovers Douglas's background in America.
In the second plot, a group of coal miners belonging to a secret society welcome a new member, Jack McMurdo, someone accused of murder in Chicago who needed to escape to a place where no one knew him. His lodge has recommended that he go to the Vermissa plain and "the Valley of Fear," and see Boss McGinty, the Bodymaster of the lodge there. McGinty and his men wreak havoc on the community when they believe injustices have occurred. Seemingly above the law, they have avoided being caught, though rumor has it that a Pinkerton man has been sent to unmask the members of the group. Holmes plays little or no part in this whole section.
The two plots have seemingly little in common, except that the dead man from Part I is branded with the mark of the lodge of miners. The second part, about these miners, suggests the motivation for the murder of Douglas in the first part. It is too bad that Doyle did not separate these two stories, since the story of the miners, though not involving Holmes, could have been developed as a powerful "one-off." It is a story filled with all the ingredients of great fiction--even including a love story--a dramatic and relevant mystery with connections to the social issues of the day. For anyone interested in watching a writer try to bridge the gap between short stories and novels, this "novel," though fun, shows the weaknesses of using two plots with too little integration of ideas. Mary Whipple
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Classic Doyle
The last of the four Sherlock Holmes novels, and one of the two best. It contains more detection in its first section than The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Holmes (off-stage... Read more
Published on 13 July 2003 by hacklehorn
Good but not as a Holmes story
This book is very interesting reading but it is not very good as a Sherlock Holmes story. The book is written in the same format as "A Study in Scarlet". Read more
Published on 20 July 2002
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