The gripping origin story of LJ Ross's beloved DCI finds Trainee Detective Constable Max Ryan assigned to the seemingly uninteresting case of a vanished clock mechanic, which rapidly escalates into a dangerous investigation into the heart of Westminster itself.

It’s 2003, and Trainee Detective Constable Max Ryan is tired of pen-pushing and ready to get stuck into the gritty underbelly of London in the aftermath of the Millennium, where murder rates are at an all-time high. Instead of chasing serial killers or tackling gang crime, he’s assigned to the case of a missing clock mechanic, whose disappearance from Big Ben’s iconic tower would never have made a by-line in the Evening Standard, were it not for the fact that it caused the grey-suited workers of the Palace of Westminster to be late by precisely seven minutes.

Booted into action by his indomitable mentor, senior officer and no-nonsense oracle in all things, Detective Inspector Ivy Bunton, he soon finds himself drawn into a mystery that goes far deeper than he imagined, into the very bowels of the Palace of Westminster.