A review by mchester24
The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

5.0

The last of the four Holmes novels in the penguin classic anthology— and it’s the one I devoured the quickest. I can’t say if it’s because I’ve come to know the style and characters more over this read, if Doyle’s style evolved as they were written, or something else, but the two part story definitely gripped me and came with very satisfying conclusions and demonstration of the classic Holmes/Watson deduction and narration. My only real gripe is i wish more was done to intertwine the Valley of Fear prequel part II to the Holmes murder solving in part I. They obviously tied in, but I wish we saw more reveal and clever connection in Part II that made part I feel even slicker as it unfolded, outside of the epilogue. 

I guess the other negative is I was excited to hear an early mention of Moriarty who is infamous to know before you start reading Holmes, but his actual connection is tenuous at best. So I guess with the novels done and my curiousity/enjoyment of it all piqued: that just leads to the obvious next step of moving to the anthology of stories!