A nobleman is killed in his own manor with a uniquely American weapon - a sawed-off shotgun, and Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective, is asked to solve the murder. The investigation takes Holmes and his intrepid companion Watson from Sussex England to America's Pennsylvania, where he tangles with a terrorist organization of Irish miners known as the "Scowrers" - and his arch-enemy, the fiendish Professor Moriarity. The Valley of Fear is one of only four full-length novels starring Sherlock Holmes.