The newspapers referred to it as the case of the seventy-seven clocks. There was quite a fuss at the time. We got into terrible trouble. Dear fellow it was one of our most truly peculiar cases. I remember as if it was yesterday. In fact Arthur Bryant remembers very little about yesterday but he does remember the oddest investigation of his career... It was late in 1973. As strikes & blackouts ravaged the country during Edward Heaths Winter of Discontent sundry members of a wealthy aristocratic family were being disposed of in a variety of grotesque ways
- by reptile by bomb by haircut. As the hours of daylight diminish towards Christmas Bryant & May the irascible detectives of Londons controversial Peculiar Crimes Unit know that time is the key
- & time is running out for both the family & the police. Their investigations lead them into a hidden world of class conflict craftsmanship & the secret loyalties of big business. But what have seventy seven ticking clocks to do with it? Now the full story can at last be revealed in this most eerie of adventures that features Arthur Bryant at his rudest John May at his most exasperated & a gallery of colourful bizarre characters who could only make their home in a city like London.