David Stuart Davies introduces this pairing of two of Conan Doyle’s most gripping Holmes novels. The Hound of the Baskervilles, the classic detective chiller, throws the world’s greatest detective into his most testing case yet: the Baskerville family, haunted for generations by a phantom beast “with blazing eyes and dripping jaws” that roams the mist-enshrouded moors around isolated Baskerville Hall on Dartmoor, now finds the hound apparently stalking young Sir Henry, the estate’s new master. Is this a manifestation of the family curse, or is Sir Henry the target of a vile and calculating murderer? Only Holmes can say. The Valley of Fear is darker and just as powerful, opening on a vile murder scene: “Lying across his chest was a most curious weapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawn off in front of the triggers. It was clear that it had been fired at close range, and that he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces”. Holmes’ arch-enemy Professor Moriarty is back, and the solution, arrived at through many surprising twists and high drama, ultimately lies half a world away in a place called ‘The Valley of Fear’. Conan Doyle’s last Holmes novel, it is, in the view of many devotees, his very best!
ISBN 13: 9781840224009
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
