"You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty? The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations -- That's genius, Watson. But if I am spared by lesser men, our day will surely come." Sherlock Holmes is the one true pastmaster of the modern mystery; if you haven't read Doyle's tales of Sherlock Holmes, it's time to correct that error now.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Book Description
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From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up-A coded warning of imminent danger sends Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to the country house of the reclusive Jack Douglas. When they arrive too late to prevent a tragic death, they must follow bewildering clues and find a murderer.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Publisher
This book is in Electronic Paperback Format. If you view this book on any of the computer systems below, it will look like a book. Simple to run, no program to install. Just put the CD in your CDROM drive and start reading. The simple easy to use interface is child tested at pre-school levels.
Windows 3.11, Windows/95, Windows/98, OS/2 and MacIntosh and Linux with Windows Emulation.
Includes Quiet Vision's Dynamic Index. the abilty to build a index for any set of characters or words. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marvelous Adaptation of Print to Audio,
By
This review is from: Valley of Fear: BBC (BBC Radio Presents) (Audio Cassette)
Conan Doyle wrote The Valley of Fear in three parts: 1. The Tragedy of Birlstone. 2. A flashback to The Scowrers, and 3. An Epilogue. It had the effect of two separate books united by a commonality of characters and theme. The radio presentation took the tack of of interspersing scenes from The Tragedy of Birlstone with flashbacks to scenes from The Scowrers. One particularly dramatic segue came when the announcement of the murder of Jack Douglas followed immediately upon John McMurdo's oath never to betray the Scowrers on pain of death. I listen to audiobooks as I commute to work. This one made me late for work as I sat in the parking lot listening to the trapping of Birdy Edwards.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Holmes Novel,
By
This review is from: The Valley of Fear (The Oxford Sherlock Holmes) (Hardcover)
This is probably the best of the Holmes novels. Like all of them (and the short stories) it is near impossible to put down, and leaves you awestruck at Holmes's genius. Doyle's writing style is extremely impressive as always, his characters seem so very real! This book is believable, a true masterpiece of mystery literature, and in the top tier of the long list of the great English detective stories. It just doesn't get any better than this. Even the long section without Holmes and Watson in it ("The Scowers") is enjoyable to read, and not boring (unlike the Mormon part in a Study In Scarlet). Highly reccommended.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Am I never going to get out of the Valley of Fear?",
By
This review is from: The Valley of Fear (Dover Thrift Editions) (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 "proves" 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 someplace where no one knew him. His lodge has recommended that he go to the Vermissa plain, "the Valley of Fear," and see Boss McGinty, the Bodymaster of the lodge there. McGinty and his men belong to a group which wreaks havoc on the community when it believes 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 the lodge of miners, provides 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 errors of using two plots with too little integration of ideas. n Mary Whipple A Study in Scarlet The Hound of the Baskervilles: 150th Anniversary Edition (Signet Classics) The Sign of Four (Penguin Classics) The Naval Treaty Speckled Band/Mystery of the Second Stain (Sherlock Holmes)
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