The fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel. English original edition. The Valley of Fear (1914) is the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The great Sherlock Holmes is called to solve a murder case in Sussex. A message containing the initials VV341 was left next to the body and discovering other elements related to the case seems almost impossible. The solution lies across the Atlantic, in a place known as "the valley of fear". Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was born in Edinburgh and took a degree in medicine at Edinburgh University before becoming a doctor in Southsea. He began writing detective stories to supplement his income and A Study in Scarlet (1887) introduced his finest creation, the hawk-eyed detective, Sherlock Holmes.