Below the Clock - JV Turner

"This isn’t an ordinary murder. The dead man was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the murder was in the House of Commons." The clock is Big Ben, above the Houses of Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is ready to present his non populist budget. Arriving a little late, he makes his preliminary speech, sipping from a glass of claret-and-seltzer as he talks. But it is a speech he is never to finish – for Edgar Reardon suddenly topples to the floor, dead. Battling to keep any scandal to a minimum, Inspector Ripple and Amos Petrie uncover a conspiracy that goes to the very heart of government – and a murder so ingenious as to shock even an investigator of his experience with its audacity. Below the Clock returns to classic Golden Age writing with an ingenious whodunit set at the heart of the political establishment.