America 1875. The people of Vermissa Valley – the Valley of Fear – live on rumours, walk in fear of blackmail, murder, a knife in the back. The whole community is gripped in the cool, cruel, capable hands of Boss McGinty and his Freemen.

         England, some twenty years later. A desperate message has reached Baker Street too late – and in the study of Birlstone Manor a man lies foully murdered. As Holmes and Watson begin their investigations, there is but one certainty. From the busy mining valley to the sleepy Sussex village – such monstrous international villainy could only be the brain-child of one man, that "great consultant in crime" and Sherlock Holmes’s most stimulating combatant ….. Professor Moriarty.