It was late in 1973. As strikes and blackouts ravaged the country during the Heath government`s `Winter of Discontent`, members of a wealthy, aristocratic family were being disposed of in various grotesque ways - by reptile, by bomb, by barber. As the hours of daylight diminish towards Christmas, Arthur Bryant and John May of the Met`s Peculiar Crimes Unit know that time is the key - and time is running out for the family and the police. The ill-matched duo`s investigations lead them into a hidden world of class conflict, craftsmanship and the murky, clandestine loyalties of big business. But what have seventy-seven ticking clocks got to do with it? With Arthur Bryant at his rudest, John May at his most exasperated and a gallery of colourful, not to say bizarre, characters who could only make their home in a city like London, only now can the truth can be revealed.