Jeffrey Darrell was the star reporter of the Chicago Call—until the paper’s management imported the legendary “reporter-detective” Marvin Feldock. Sidelined and forced to write headlines that will appear under his rival’s name, Darrell finds himself desperate for a scoop to reclaim his glory.
The lead of a lifetime appears in the most unlikely of places: a cryptic message scrawled on a handkerchief left in a local Chinese laundry. The note, addressed to a mysterious “Miss Rita Thorne,” hints at a missing fortune and a desperate search for an ordinary alarm clock.
Darrell’s investigation leads him to Iris Shawsbury, a southern beauty living under an alias, and into the heart of a ghoulish conspiracy. When Darrell dares to open the Jarndyce family vault, he discovers a startling deception: the body inside is not human, but a lifelike wax replica.
As the shadows of the “Blonde Beast of Bremen”—a ruthless criminal from Darrell’s past—loom over the Chicago underworld, Darrell must navigate a maze of forged wills and insurance fraud. With a murderer closing in and the deadline approaching, Darrell realizes that the key to the entire mystery is etched into the very mainspring of the missing clock.
In a city where the presses never stop, Jeffrey Darrell is about to learn that some secrets are better left unticked. Can he find the clock before his time—and his life—runs out?