It takes place after two of Meyer's other Holmes pastiches, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and The Canary Trainer, though it was published in between the two.

The plot concerns a series of strange murders in London's theatre district at the end of the 19th century.

The West End Horror made The New York Times Best Seller list for eleven weeks between June 13, 1976 and August 22, 1976.

It opens with a foreword by Meyer, who states that the manuscript was brought to his attention by a woman with some familial connection to Horace Vernet, an ancestor of Holmes.

The story involves many well-known people, including George Bernard Shaw,[1] who hires Holmes to look into the death of an unpleasant theatre critic; Sir Arthur Sullivan, one of whose singers at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was another victim of the murderer; and others including W. S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Frank Harris.