Although Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, he was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays, romances, poetry, and non-fiction. Sherlock Holmes grapples with the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty to solve a foul murder that takes place in a Sussex manor house. The investigation uncovers an earlier and grimmer history of lawlessness and wholesale slaughter in a mining valley in the United States.