The Clockmaker

May 8, 2017
Set in 1928, Adams’s elegantly written sequel to The Murder Book takes intelligent, introspective Det. Chief Insp. Henry Johnstone and his genial sergeant, Mickey Hitchens, to Shoreham-by-Sea on England’s south coast to investigate the murder of Cissie Rowe, a rising star in the film industry. Cissie was found dead in the bedroom of her modest home in Bungalow Town, an isolated Shoreham neighborhood that’s a veritable dormitory for the nearby film studio. When one of her lovestruck admirers turns up brutally murdered a few days later in his home just up the beach from Cissie’s, Johnstone and Hitchens are certain there’s a connection. As they dig deeper into the past of the beautiful young actress, they discover disturbing elements that have shaped her life in surprising ways. Adams smoothly integrates information about the police force between the wars (pay, hierarchy, development of forensic science) into the well-crafted plot.

May 15, 2017
In 1928, Detective Chief Inspector Johnstone of Scotland Yard is charged with investigating the death of a silent-movie actress. He heads off to Shoreham-by-the-Sea, a small town populated in large part by people in the movie business. This means that most of Johnstone's likely suspects live a large part of their lives in make-believe worlds and are thoroughly adept at spinning lies. The first Johnstone novel, The Murder Book (2017), introduced us to a fascinating character, but just as we were getting to know him, the story ended. So this new installment in the series offers not just a solidly constructed mystery but also the welcome return of a character we hope to read more about in the future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)