Murder Like Clockwork

An empty house that isn’t empty. A victim who vanishes. An impossible crime?

Every Thursday at midday Audrey Brooks cleans the Petrov house. Mr Petrov is never home – in fact he seems to use the house purely as storage for his impressive collection of antiques – but that doesn’t affect the care with which Audrey mops, polishes, and carefully winds each of the dozens of beautiful clocks that decorate the tall, elegant, empty London mansion.

Until the morning she finds a corpse in the back bedroom, the pristine walls and floor covered in blood, and flees the house in panic.

Fifteen minutes later, the police arrive… and find nothing. No body. No blood. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is the clock in that back bedroom, which is now running four minutes slow.

With no victim, the police are convinced there was no murder, but Audrey knows better. A man has been killed, and if they won’t do anything about it, she – and her annoying friend Lewis – will. Whodunnit is one thing, but this detective duo must also wrestle with when – and where on earth is the body? It’s not long since they solved the murder of their neighbour, so they’re not rookie sleuths, and at least this time the case has no connection to their home.

Does it?

A charming and witty locked room mystery full of twists, perfect for fans of Richard Osman, Tom Hindle, and Janice Hallett.

Author Biography

After studying Drama at university, Nicola Whyte worked as a bookseller for several years before going to work in the digital department at Waterstones. She now runs a small digital agency in the West Country. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Comedy Women in Print Prize and has been listed in the Cheshire Novel Prize, the BPA First Novel Award, and Mslexia, while 10 Marchfield Square was named as first runner up in the 2023 Daily Mail First Novel Award. Nicola lives near Stonehenge with her family.