John Dickson Carr, a master of the Golden Age British-style mystery novel, presents Dr. Gideon Fell's most chilling case, in which a clock-obsessed killer terrorizes London A clockmaker is puzzled by the theft of the hands of a monumental new timepiece he is preparing for a member of the nobility. That night, one of the stolen hands is found buried between a policeman's shoulder blades, stopping his clock for all time. The crime is just peculiar enough to catch the attention of Dr. Gideon Fell, the portly detective whose formidable intellect is the terror of every criminal in London. Working closely with Scotland Yard, he finds that the case turns on the question of why the clock hands were stolen. And learning the answer will put Dr. Fell squarely in the path of a madman with nothing but time on his hands. "There has probably never been, either in real life or in fiction, a more elaborately planned crime than this one." -The New York Times "Very few detective stories baffle me, but Mr. Carr's always do." -Agatha Christie "Mr. Carr can lead us away from the small, artificial world of the ordinary detective plot into the menace of outer darkness. . . . Every sentence gives a thrill of positive pleasure." -Dorothy L. Sayers John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) was one of the most popular authors of Golden Age British-style detective novels. Born in Pennsylvania and the son of a US congressman, Carr graduated from Haverford College in 1929. Soon thereafter, he moved to England where he married an Englishwoman and began his mystery-writing career. In 1948, he returned to the US as an internationally known author. Carr received the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and was one of the few Americans ever admitted into the prestigious, but almost exclusively British, Detection Club.