The Clockmaker's Final Tick. The Relic Hunter Mysteries, #1

A locked workshop. A legendary clock stopped at 10:10. And a master who took his last breath in silence. To the police, the death of Simon Vance is a tragic but clear-cut suicide. The door was bolted from the inside, a note was left behind, and the tea was laced with cyanide. Case closed. But for Eleanor "Nell" Gray, an elite antique restorer who can read the history of a scratch on a brass dial, something is profoundly wrong.
Simon didn't just leave a clock stopped - he left a message. Forced into an uneasy partnership with Inspector Ethan Walker - the man who represents the very rules Nell loves to bend - they must navigate a maze of high-society secrets and long-buried greed. Walker hunts for DNA and digital footprints; Nell hunts for the truth hidden in the patina of age. As the clock ticks down, Nell realizes the killer isn't just protecting a fortune - they are erasing the kind of truth that was never meant to be found.
In a world where objects remember what people forget, can Nell find the missing gear before she becomes the next relic of the past?