The Valley of Fear

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Libby audiobook 6 hours

read by David Timson

Published: 1914 (this version in 2007)

Genre: mystery, detective, historical

Interesting. I've now (finally) read all four Sherlock Holmes novels. This was his fourth and final novel (most Holmes stories were written as short stories). The blurb says, "Holmes and his faithful Dr. Watson are summoned to a country house by a coded message. They arrive too late to save a life and then pursue the trail which leads to the unmasking of the murderer."

I didn't really enjoy it that much. It reminded me a lot of "A Study in Scarlet" - both have a storyline taking place in America. It reminded me of "The Sign of the Four" in the whole secret society aspect. . . 

It seemed weird that Holmes was referred to as "an amateur." I had to look again at the chronology of the books.

A Study in Scarlet - Holmes and Watson first meet and work together; the dead man and "RACHE" on the wall; the Mormons and what happened in the American West . . . 

The Sign of the Four - the treasure, Watson meets his wife Mary, India, 

The Hound of the Baskervilles - the one I'm most familiar with . . .

The Valley of Fear - home with moat, man with face blown off, "The Masons" in America, Pinkertons . . . 

I loved the Scottish guy McDonald! (Detective . . . but not the local yokel)

Body Master McGinty was a piece of work! Fighting against capitalist evil is one thing, but terrorizing and murdering people is another. This got me thinking about unions, doing what is right, greed, etc. In getting ready to blog this book, I looked it up on Wikipedia and learned about the "Molly Maguires" - part of Doyle's inspiration for this story. Very interesting!

The Molly Maguires were an Irish 19th-century secret society active in Ireland, Liverpool and parts of the Eastern United States, best known for their activism among Irish-American and Irish immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania. After a series of often violent conflicts, twenty suspected members of the Molly Maguires were convicted of murder and other crimes and were executed by hanging in 1877 and 1878. This history remains part of local Pennsylvania lore and the actual facts much debated among historians.