Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (2:7)

Summary: In the conclusion of this tale (finally), McMurdo sets a trap for this detective they’re worried about and has all the most lethal members of the Scowrers lie in wait. But then he reveals that he is actually the detective they had been so worried about and that he knows all their secrets and they are all under arrest. They serve their time, and from then on McMurdo/Birdy Edwards has to go into hiding. Eventually he goes overseas to get away, but the Scowrers just hire Moriarty to help, and that has sealed his fate. After some time passes, Sherlock and Watson hear that he had fallen overboard around Cape Town and was lost at sea.

Sherlock Rating: I give the story as a whole just 2.5 magnifying glasses. I was disappointed that Moriarty, and Sherlock, for that matter, just played a marginal role. And I still don’t care for story tangents like the one about the freemasons, McMurdo, etc.

Mystery Story Convention: The twist ending. Though I was pretty sure McMurdo would turn out to be the guy that had faked his death to get away from “the bodymaster” and “the Valley of Fear,” and I was pretty sure he’d secretly prevented some murders, like warning the guy before he blew up the house, I didn’t guess that he was actually the detective, and I appreciate twist endings like that.

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (2:5-6)

Summary: McMurdo’s girlfriend wants him to leave the valley with her, and he says they will within a year. He’s adapting well. Most like him, some hate him. They have to do favors for other “gang/freemason” clans, such as let two assassins stay with them. Then everything heats up for them when they hear the secret that Morris the detective is on their case. McMurdo seriously plans to escape now.

Mystery/Western Story Convention: The appearance of the good guy in town who will shake things up. I expect a duel at high noon soon.

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (2:4)

Summary: A fellow lodge member who had also originated from out of town secretly warned McMurdo of the terrible nature of this lodge of Freemen. McMurdo told him he was weak but promised not to speak of their meeting to anyone, which is good, because the Bodymaster comes to question him soon after. McMurdo quickly satisfies his concerns and promises not to associate too much with the man. As the interview finishes up, the police come to arrest McMurdo for his part in the beating of that newspaper editor. They go to trial, but the case is quickly thrown out because the Bodymaster and fellow lodge members give them all alibis, and there is no real evidence against them.

Mystery/Western Story Conventions: (I skipped the Sherlock rating–I’ll just rate this thing as a whole when it’s done–spoiler alert: it won’t be a very high score) So this convention is the trial that is a farce–no one really expected anyone to be convicted. They know the system is corrupt, but the good guys are going through the motions to try to make a point.

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (2:3)

Summary: McGinty begins hanging out with his lodge brothers and elevates to fame when a cop formerly from Chicago recognizes him and accuses him of murder. Then McGinty is initiated into the lodge and branded. There is an issue brought up that if they scare away all the small businesses, the big ones will buy everything up and won’t put up with their thuggery. That idea is struck down. Then McGinty joins a crew that goes off to punish an editor that said bad things about them.

Sherlock Rating: still N/A…it was fairly exciting, though.

Mystery Story/Western Convention: Thugs who have taken over a town–all the little guys fear them and succomb. Now we just need a cowboy in a mask to come for a showdown.

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (2:1-2)

Summary: We meet John McMurdo, a freeman on the run from Chicago, who is settling in a rough, mining town. He takes up in a boarding house and flirts with the owner’s daughter until the owner finds out he’s freeman, which is like a gang there. Then McMurdo meets the freeman bodymaster and we learn McMurdo was a counterfeiter and murderer, which the bodymaster is very interested in.

Sherlock Rating: 2 monacles, I guess? There isn’t a mystery here, or Sherlock. It’s like that first story, “A Study in Scarlett,” which I don’t know why he returned to this format, since it was pretty boring. Hopefully Moriarty will at least turn up somehow.

Mystery Story Convention: N/A, as it is not a mystery and more of a western–the convention there is, stranger comes to town and stirs up trouble…

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (7)

Summary: This chapter was very long and the end of Part 1. We solve the case–or rather, Sherlock does, while displaying his love of dramatics by making the police and Watson sit in the cold night on a stakeout without telling them what they were even staking-out. Finally the murdered man’s friend, Cecil Barker, shows up and tries to haul in evidence he’d hidden in the moat, when Sherlock jumps out. Cecil wasn’t going to say anything, but then the wife appears. We think we’re going to get some kind of illicit lovers’ confession, but then the dead man himself comes out, not dead at all. He knew a guy was coming for him, and when he attacked he killed him. When they realized none of the staff had heard, only his close friend and wife, he decided to fake his death to stop his pursuers once and for all. Now that that mystery’s solved, does that mean we get back to the Moriarty stuff?

Sherlock Rating: 4 monacles/4 magnifying glasses. I’m rating this chapter and this mystery as a whole, even though the book isn’t over yet. It wasn’t the most exciting, but it was interesting. I enjoyed how Sherlock messed with the police, and I liked the twist that the guy wasn’t dead. I’d suspected that, but it was still a surprise. I’ll still rate the book as a whole when it’s finished.

Mystery Story Convention: the victim that really isn’t dead. This is at least the second Sherlock mystery where this has happened (this was the better of the two by far), and it is probably a required plot at some point in every mystery series. Spoiler: Agatha Christy even used it in Ten Little Indians.

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (4-6)

Summary: In these three chapters, they begin investigating the murder of John Douglas, who had been mysteriously killed in his castle house. They first have a lot of questions with no clear answers. Sherlock interviews all of the household staff. Douglas had a friend who had been with him in America who knew of some great fear he had and used to mention “the valley of fear” but never explained what it was. He seemed to be afraid of someone called Bodymaster McGinty. Finally, Mrs. Douglas is revealed to have a secret. They believe she and the friend may be in love and that they are hiding the true time of murder and helped the murderer escape by lowering the drawbridge for him. Sherlock dwells on a missing dumbbell and finally reaches some kind of conclusion while calling himself a lunatic.

Sherlock Rating: 2 monacles. The case is interesting, but it doesn’t seem that special to be drug out into book-length. Moriarty hasn’t been mentioned again at all!

Mystery Story Convention: The cheating wife with a secret. The wives always have a secret. Those pesky women are always hiding something from the big, strong, insecure men. No matter how happy a woman in a mystery appears, she is always hiding something. I guess that’s why Sherlock doesn’t respect women all that much.

Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear (1-3)

Another Sherlock novel! I didn’t even know this one existed. The only one I’ve ever heard about was The Hound. This one involves Moriarty, so now we get to see how bad he really is.

Summary: Sherlock has received a coded message from someone called Porlock, who works for Moriarty. Instead of sending the cipher for the code, though, Porlock backs out, saying Moriarty suspects him. Sherlock figures it out on his own, though, and just as they read about a murder that’s going to occur, the police come to ask for help with that very murder. Sherlock tells them of Moriarty and how smart and wicked he is. He makes his fortune selling his brain power to criminals. The police don’t seem to believe him, but humor him so long as he’ll help with the murder. And then we learn of the murder. This rich guy, John Douglas, lives in a castle house complete with moat and drawbridge. He gets his face blown off and the find a strange mark branded on his arm and discover that his wedding ring is gone.

Sherlock Rating: So I have to break this down again into a chapter-based rating system, or in this case, a section-based one. I’m not entirely sure what this book is about, aside from Moriarty, and I always picture Moriarty with a monacle for some reason, so it will be a monacle system unless I think of something better.

So I give this section 1.5 monacles. It was kind of boring, aside from the house with the drawbridge and the fact Moriarty is in it. But it’s building up to something bigger, so it got the extra half.

Mystery Story Convention: An arch nemesis–and in this case, a nemesis who exists, but no one believes it but the hero(es). Stories are always better with a nemesis!

Sherlock Holmes: “The Adventure of the Three Students”

Summary: Sherlock and Watson help a lecturer figure out who was copying the exam he’d left in his office. After investigating, he determines that a student who was smart but had lost everything and needed a scholarship had come in to copy it. The servant had tried to protect him but also convince him to not cheat because he used to work for the family before coming to the college. The student had taken his advice, and when Sherlock called him in, said he was going to join the police and go to some other country.

Sherlock Rating: 2 magnifying glasses. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that great either. As Sherlock told Watson, this isn’t one of your cases–brains, not brawn. But Watson didn’t listen to him.

Mystery Story Convention: I’d say this is one of the few cases that entirely depended on crime scene evidence, and there was some interesting evidence, like tiny clay pyramids that had fallen off the student’s cleats. So, very CSI

Sherlock Holmes: “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”

Summary: A young lady comes to Sherlock to help figure out why this guy has been following her as she rides home on her bike each week. She’s pretty, so at first they just feel it’s a shy admirer, but when she ends up terminating her employment because they old guy she was working for proposed to her, Sherlock feels it necessary to make sure she gets home okay. That’s when she’s kidnapped and almost forced into marriage with some guy to get an inheritance she didn’t know she was getting. Apparently these two guys–the old guy and the forced marriage guy–met an old uncle of hers who was rich but hadn’t talked to his family in years. The two guys came back and told her the uncle was dead and had been penniless but had sent them to take care of her if she needed help–they’d already planned to have one marry her and then split the inheritance when the guy actually did die. But the old guy actually did fall in love with her and wanted to back out, so the other guy got a new friend, a defrocked clergyman, to help him instead. Luckily Sherlock and Watson stop the plot in time.

Sherlock Rating: 3.5 magnifying glasses. I definitely thing old Sir Conan Doyle has his act together with these later stories. Even the ones where there’s no actual crime move quickly and are interesting and exciting. This one was good, but I left room for improvement.

Mystery Story Convention: The long-lost rich uncle inheritance–if there were as many rich uncles in real life as there are in these stories we’d all be getting a huge inheritance…so where’s mine?