The Clocks
Six clocks, a dead stranger and a detective who never leaves his armchair.
The Clocks is a Hercule Poirot novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK on 7 November 1963. Poirot never visits any of the crime scenes or speaks to any of the witnesses or suspects: he is challenged to prove that a crime can be solved by the intellect alone. The novel has two interwoven plots - the mystery Poirot works on from his armchair and a Cold War spy story told in the first person.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Agatha Christie
- Cover artist
- Michael Harvey
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Series
- Hercule Poirot
- Genre
- Crime, espionage
- Publisher
- Collins Crime Club
- Released
- 7 November 1963
Lore & Background
Sheila Webb, a typist from Miss Martindale's secretarial agency, arrives at an appointment at 19 Wilbraham Crescent in Crowdean, Sussex, the home of the blind Miss Pebmarsh. She finds a well-dressed older man stabbed to death, surrounded by six clocks, four of them stopped at 4:13. Running from the house, she meets Colin "Lamb", an intelligence agent investigating a note found on a dead agent; he and Inspector Hardcastle interview the neighbours.
Reader's Guide
The dead man's business card proves false and the labels have been removed from his clothes. Reviewers at the time found the murder of a character about to give useful information "corny"; Robert Barnard in 1990 called the book a "lively, well-narrated, highly unlikely late specimen" and was disappointed that the clocks were red herrings.
More in Cases & Stories
Elsewhere in Hercule Poirot
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