Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Valley of Fear

It is a sad thing indeed that this, easily the most interesting of Doyle's four Holmes novels, is the one least remembered and adapted. Now, it is possible that I have simply grown used to the more fluffy elements of his writing by now, but this one seems by far the most tidy, both in terms of pacing and plot.

I do have one complaint, and that is the baldly revisionist insertion of Moriarty into the text. Doyle was prescient in his realization that Moriarty was far too interesting a character to die in his debut appearance. To hear modern Holmes enthusiasts speak, it would seem that Moriarty is a central figure in the canon, when he is plainly not. I wonder how many laypeople labor under that misconception in fact. This appearance, while serving to add to Moriarty's mythos, is clubfooted at best. Other than this brief stumble, Doyle is at his best in The Valley of Fear.

The real star of this New Annotated Norton edition is, however, editor Leslie Klinger. The "gentle fiction", as he puts it, of Holmes' reality, is a charming approach to the scholarship, which has the double virtue of winnowing down the available scholarship--which appears to be vast indeed--and contributing a narrative to what would otherwise be a sterile recitation of facts. Well played, Sir.