title: Seventy-Seven Clocks: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery
author:  Christopher Fowler 
description: "Highly unusual ... exciting and original.... It starts with a violent death in the lobby of the legendary Savoy Hotel and quickly expands to include art vandalism, Gilbert and Sullivan, and a host of other peculiarities."<i>Chicago Tribune</i><br /><br />"A twisty thriller, full of action and plot surprises."<i>Publishers Weekly</i><br /><br />Invulnerable, genial and crafty. <i>Los Angeles Times<br /></i><br />Theyre old, theyre cranky, and their chaotic work habits inevitably lead to disaster. But life always seems livelier whenever Arthur Bryant and John May are on a case! <i>New York Times Book Review</i> <br /><br />Cranky, eccentric, and brilliant, Bryant and May dispense fascinating bits of knowledge as they solve supposedly unsolvable crimes. <i>Cleveland Plain Dealer</i>
zlib_text: The Clocks
  
  The Clocks
  The Clocks
  
  The Clocks
  
  PROLOGUE
  The afternoon of the 9th of September was exactly like any other afternoon. None of those who
  were to be concerned in the events of that day could lay claim to having had a premonition of disaster.
  (With the exception, that is, of Mrs Packer of 47, Wilbraham Crescent, who specialized in
  premonitions, and who always described at great length afterwards the peculiar forebodings and
  tremors that had beset her. But Mrs Packer at No. 47, was so far away from No. 19, and so little
  concerned with the happenings there, that it seemed unnecessary for her to have had a premonition at
  all.)
  At the Cavendish Secretarial and Typewriting Bureau, Principal, Miss K. Martindale, September
  9th had been a dull day, a day of routine. The telephone rang, typewriters clicked, the pressure of
  business was average, neither above nor below its usual volume. None of it was particularly
  interesting. Up till 2.35, September 9th might have been a day like any