The Valley of Fear (Sherlock Holmes #7) (1915)
by Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes and Watson investigate a mysterious murder in a remote English castle in the first part of this novel. After that, there is a lengthy digression as the action moves across the pond to America, where we are treated to the Holmes-free backstory preceding the crime. Arthur Conan Doyle seems unable to write a Sherlock Holmes novel in which the great detective is present from beginning to end. Arthur Conan Doyle Of the four he wrote, three of them adopt this same structure, in which the narrative is broken up by a novella-length episode that could easily have been developed as a stand-alone novel. Even in "The Hound of the Baskervilles," which eschews this structure, Holmes disappears and Watson takes center stage for the middle portion of the story. This does not mean that the novel must be bad; I gave positive reviews to all of those books. However, this one is not as successful. While the goings-on among the miners in the Valle