The Clockwork Alibi

Penny Reed has hosted plenty of private showings at The Curious Clockwork, but never one that ends with a man dead on her showroom floor. When independent appraiser Warren Morgan is brought in to authenticate the Ashworth Sentinel — a rare longcase clock rumored to hide a family secret behind its pendulum housing — he promises to reveal whatever he finds before the night is through. He never gets the chance. Before the private evening ends, the clock's weight bracket gives way, and Warren goes down with it. The brass edge tells a different story than an accident: someone filed it through on purpose. With the doors locked and the estate's executor due to seal the building for probate by eleven o'clock, Penny has less than two hours to sort the guilty from the merely inconvenient. A collector who wanted the clock authenticated cheap. A rival appraiser with an old professional grudge. And a soft-spoken grandniece who insists she only wants the Sentinel kept in the family — and who left the building, she swears, the moment she heard the front clock strike nine. There's just one problem. Penny is the only person in Bellhaven who knows that particular clock has run eleven minutes fast for two years running, ever since her grandfather decided a shop needs one clock in a hurry to keep the rest of them honest. In a room full of twenty clocks that have never agreed on the hour, only one of them has never lied. And it's about to prove that somebody's alibi was built on borrowed time. The Curious Clockwork Mysteries continue — because in Bellhaven, even time can lie.