Private Investigator Bart Bridges has had to enter the witness protection programme. His new identity is Cyrus Bartholomew, clock maker, in the small seaside town of Wainthorpe-on-sea. Two years later, Cyrus has easily settled into his new life as the clock maker, one of dull routine and habit. But his serenity is challenged when his elderly neighbour, the man who runs The Art Gallery next door, is violently murdered in his bed. This makes Cyrus wonder if the murderer mistook the art shop for his clock shop, and he begins to think that his past has caught up with him. Tick tock! Besides the old man's murder, Cyrus has noticed some strange things happening at his own shop, things for which he doesn't have an explanation. When he meets Jayson Vingoe, the CSI for his neighbour's murder case, the investigator begins to realise that Cyrus isn't quite what he seems. When another murder occurs, revealing a widespread syndicate of drugs and human trafficking, Cyrus becomes even more nervous, having escaped similar corruption in his past life. Is time running out for the clock maker? Tick tock! Pat McDonald lives in the rural Midlands of the United Kingdom. This is her seventh book, a stand-alone crime thriller, with a character taken from her third book, Boxed Off from her Blue Woods trilogy. "I loved this character, but was inspired by the photography of fellow author Ian Hutson to set the scene in an unremarkable seaside town (from his photographs of Mablethorpe, UK), and our conversations about serial killers and where they might pre-exist. I have dedicated this book to him." Publisher's website: http: //sbpra.com/PatMcDonald