Murder Like Clockwork

Audrey and Lewis #2

by Nicola Whyte

An empty house that isn't empty. A victim who vanishes. An impossible crime?

Every Thursday at midday Audrey Brooks cleans the Petrov house. Mr Petrov is never home - in fact he seems to use the house purely as storage for his impressive collection of antiques - but that doesn't affect the care with which Audrey mops, polishes, and carefully winds each of the dozens of beautiful clocks that decorate the tall, elegant, empty London mansion.

Until the morning she finds a corpse in the back bedroom, the pristine walls and floor covered in blood, and flees the house in panic.

Fifteen minutes later, the police arrive... and find nothing. No body. No blood. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary is the clock in that back bedroom, which is now running four minutes slow.

With no victim, the police are convinced there was no murder, but Audrey knows better. A man has been killed, and if they won't do anything about it, she - and her annoying friend Lewis - will. Whodunnit is one thing, but this detective duo must also wrestle with when - and where on earth is the body? It's not long since they solved the murder of their neighbour, so they're not rookie sleuths, and at least this time the case has no connection to their home.

Does it?

A charming and witty locked room mystery full of twists.

Genres: Mystery, Mystery Thriller

371 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 12, 2026

About the author

Nicola Whyte has loved books for as long as she can remember. She writes novels and short stories for both adults and children. Her work has been listed for the Comedy Women in Print Prize, the Cheshire Novel Prize, the Daily Mail First Novel Competition, the BPA First Novel Award, and the Times Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition. She lives near Stonehenge in Wiltshire with her family, a ridiculous spaniel, and two demanding tabby cats.

Reviews

[Harveynics · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an arc from net galley in exchange for an honest review. Another great story set around the residents of Marchfield square. Somehow Audrey and Lewis get themselves tangled up in yet another murder mystery! The characters are very likeable and I am enjoying seeing how the different personalities of Audrey and Lewis are rubbing off on each other and helping them evolve. A nice cozy mystery nothing too gruesome discussed and the puzzle of it all is very good, keeping you guessing right up until the end. If you like The Thursday Murder Club then this book should be on your TBR list. Looking forward to the next instalment as it seems this series has legs.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second in a series featuring the amateur detective duo Audrey Brooks and Lewis McLennon. I haven’t read the first, 10 Marchfield Square, but I enjoyed this one so much I’m planning to go back and read it, as well as looking out for any future books in the series.

Murder Like Clockwork is set in London and begins with cleaner Audrey Brooks arriving at the house she cleans every Thursday afternoon. She got the job through an agency and has never met the owner of the house, a Russian financier who is rarely in the country but wants someone to wind his collection of clocks and dust his antiques and expensive furniture. On this particular Thursday, Audrey arrives earlier than her usual time but it’s so cold she enters the house anyway and prepares to start work – only to find that she’s not alone. There’s a dead body in one of the bedrooms…with splashes of blood all over the walls and floor, showing that it wasn’t a natural death.

Audrey runs outside to call the police, who arrive twenty minutes later. To her shock, however, she finds herself accused of wasting police time, because there’s no dead body or blood to be seen. Audrey can’t believe it; how can an entire crime scene completely vanish in only twenty minutes? Convinced that she wasn’t imagining things, she contacts her friend, Lewis McLennon, who recently helped her solve another mystery. Lewis is excited to have a second crime to investigate, but how can they even prove that a crime has been committed when the victim and the evidence have disappeared?

When I picked up this book I was anticipating a quick, entertaining read – and that's what I got! The characters are well drawn and quirky, the mystery is cleverly plotted without being too difficult to follow and the overall tone is light and humorous. It didn’t really matter that I hadn’t read the previous book as this one works well as a standalone, but I did feel that I didn’t fully understand the role of one of the characters, Celeste, the owner of Marchfield Square, the residential complex where Lewis and Audrey both live. I’m sure I’ll get to know her better when I read the first book.

The novel is written from the points of view of Audrey, Lewis and occasionally Celeste, giving different perspectives on different aspects of the mystery. I found Lewis a particularly interesting character. As a struggling crime writer, he’s enthusiastic about having a real life crime to solve in the hope that it will give him inspiration for his books, but this often leads him to speak without thinking and many people find him annoying. He has a job at a recruitment agency, which he resents because he would rather spend his time writing, and is genuinely surprised when he discovers that other people also have lives outside work and are finding ways to balance their day jobs with pursuing their own dreams. Audrey is a very different personality – she’s warm, friendly and sociable and is happy with her cleaning jobs (although she wishes they were better paid). She and Lewis complement each other perfectly and form a good team.

Although Audrey and Lewis do most of the investigating, I loved the way the other residents of Marchfield Square also get involved. Somehow they all seem to know exactly what’s going on and everyone has an opinion to give or a piece of advice to offer. If you’ve ever watched Only Murders in the Building, that’s what this book reminded me of! I found it very entertaining overall and am looking forward to meeting Lewis and Audrey again.

[Shari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audrey Brooks lives in a community of people who were down on their luck bit who caught a break when they came to live there, being able to rent flats at well below market value. Each of the residents has a skill set and the 'matriarch' of the community and owner of the square is Celeste. Audrey is a professional cleaner who takes her job very seriously indeed. One of her clients lives abroad but has a house full of antiques. He's particularly into his clocks. Audrey's job is to enter the house at precisely noon on a particular day each week to clean, but more importantly to wind the clocks. One cold winter day, she arrives at the property early. She's freezing and decides that it'll be fine if she goes in half an hour ahead of schedule instead of waiting outside on the pavement, so she goes in, disarms the alarm, gets some feeling back in her fingers and toes, and gets to work. Suddenly all the clocks but one start to chime. She goes to investigate the outlier and discovers a blood spattered room with a dead body in a chair. She runs back outside and calls the police, who take a while to arrive. When they do, they find nothing amiss. The room is clean. Nothing to see here. But Audrey knows what she saw and with the help of her friends--in particular Lewis--she's going to find out what's going on.

This was a good read. I liked the characters and their individual quirks. I would have liked to know more about a few of them who made short appearances in this book, but did provide helpful information. This is the second book in a series, I think, and I didn't even know about the first one, so while I suspect I would know more about Celeste in particular and probably some of the others as well had I read the first book, it was in no way necessary to enjoy this one. The setting was interesting and the plot was unique in my experience. I quite like Audrey and her zeal for cleaning. Lewis grows a bit in the book and learns some things about himself, which I also found interesting. All in all, I really enjoyed my time with this book and I would read more by this author in future. Recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a digital review copy.

[CPE · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicola Whyte’s Murder Like Clockwork is the second in her series featuring Audrey Brooks, a cleaner in London. I haven’t read the first book in the series. Although I may have enjoyed this second book more if I had done so, my lack of acquaintance with the characters didn’t much matter. Audrey and her neighbour, Lewis, apparently solved a murder in that book and the author is obviously positioning them to solve another murder in this one.

I liked the way that the author makes her characters’ jobs essential to the plot: if Audrey hadn’t gone to 35 Beaton Gardens to give the house its weekly clean, the body would never have been spotted. If Lewis’s job wasn’t matching job-seeking staff and staff-seeking employers, he wouldn’t have made the contacts; if Mei hadn’t been dating a police sergeant… etc.

The dialogue is snappy; the tying together of the plot strands is very well done; the characters’ behaviour is 100% consistent with the way they are depicted – and yet… The book just didn’t really grab me. Normally, I pride myself on being able to articulate what I enjoy or dislike about a book, but I’m struggling with Murder Like Clockwork. I think it’s that I feel no empathy with the characters. Lewis is unfeeling and some of his actions made me cringe. There’s a big fuss made about getting a car registration (and it appears to have been done) but there is nothing in the narrative about doing so. Audrey finds a body in a blood-drenched room and calls the police, but when they arrive fifteen minutes later, the body has disappeared and the room is spotless. It appears to be impossible, but how it was done was, I felt, obvious. I enjoyed the way Audrey’s professional curiosity motivated her to keep wondering how the scene was cleaned so well and so quickly. However, although I guessed how the author handled the corpse, I’m sceptical of how she explains the death itself. While it’s not quite “And with one bound, I was free!”, I felt it was unsatisfying and undermined the more carefully written passages.

As I say, the book is mostly well-written and I do recommend it, as I suspect many people will thoroughly enjoy it. It just didn’t grip me.

#MurderLikeClockwork #NetGalley

[Mana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audrey Brooks is a cleaner who notices everything. This becomes a problem when she finds a corpse in a London mansion, only for it to disappear before the police arrive. The only clue left behind is an antique clock running four minutes slow. It is a traditional locked room setup, yet the tension feels modern. Audrey knows what she saw, even if the reality of a clean room suggests she might be losing her mind.

Audrey is a meticulous protagonist whose professional eye for detail makes her a natural detective. She is grounded by her friend Lewis; he is annoying, yet their shared history as a duo prevents the narrative from feeling like a standard origin story. Their partnership provides a necessary layer of human connection. Audrey’s growth from a panicked witness to a determined investigator feels earned and honest.

The writing is lean and intelligent, avoiding the heavy-handed drama often found in modern mysteries. The prose stays light, favoring a dry wit that keeps the reader slightly off balance. By focusing on the timing of the crime rather than the culprit alone, the story avoids genre clichés. The atmosphere is British cozy with a sharp edge; it fits well alongside the works of Richard Osman or Janice Hallett.

The narrative reflects a modern anxiety about time and how easily our perception of truth can be manipulated. In an era of constant surveillance, something is unsettling about a physical space that refuses to yield its secrets. It suggests that, despite our technology, a well-timed disappearance still carries weight. This forced me to consider how many details I overlook in my own daily routine while the seconds tick away.

The book manages to be inventive without being flashy. While the amateur sleuth trope is familiar, the mechanical precision of the plot makes it unique. It does not rely on shock value to keep attention. Instead, it provides a puzzle that requires genuine thought. It is a reminder that the most significant secrets are often hidden in the places we think we have already cleaned.

[Noemi Proietti · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was happy to return to Marchfield Square and its residents, after enjoying Nicola Whyte’s debut, 10 Marchfield Square, but I didn’t expect to love Murder Like Clockwork even more than the first book and to find myself so absorbed in the story that I spent the weekend reading it.

The protagonists of this second book are still Audrey, Lewis, and Celeste who find themselves, once again, entangled in a murder investigation. Audrey, one of the residents of 10 Marchfield Square in West London, is a cleaner. She cleans the houses of wealthy people in Mayfair and she is very passionate about her job, determined to excel, no matter how strange the job or the situation is. And her strangest job must be the one in 35 Beaton Gardens, owned by a Russian oligarch as a second home. As far as she can tell no one has ever been in the home, but not only she must clean it every week, but, most importantly, she must wind each of the clocks in the house. When she finds a body in the house that then quickly and mysteriously disappears without leaving a trace, she enlists the help of her neighbour and friend Lewis to find out the truth. After their last murder investigation, crime writer Lewis is working on his next novel, although he still needs to go to the daily job he so much despises, so he is thrilled when he and Audrey are involved in yet another mystery which includes late-night stake-outs, following cars all around London, and convincing the police that a body has been dropped in the river. And watching over them, together with her loyal friend/butler/assistant Dixon, is Celeste, owner of the community at 10 Marchfield Square, who, following the events of the first book, is looking to find someone to rent one of the vacant flats, but no longer trusts her own judgement.

Murder Like Clockwork is captivating, beautifully-written, and entertaining, and features a cast of relatable and well-developed characters that you can’t help but like. I can’t wait for the next murder!

[Hugh Dunnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have given up worrying about the tag ‘cosy crime’. Yes, as a descriptor like ‘dystopian’ or ‘romantasy’ it does possibly provide you with an idea of what to expect. But like most labels, it is very non-descriptive – there is a lot of trash in the cosy genre but then, there is a lot of trash in any genre. ‘Literary fiction’ has its share too. Finding the treasure in the trash can be hard.

So yes, Murder Like Clockwork is cosy crime, but in the good old days, it would just have been described as crime, it is just that the puzzle and solution are what matters, rather than the gritty reality. And who wants gritty reality in their novels? Sadists and weirdos? Probably. There is enough reality in reality, thank you very much. Novels should be about escapism and a good story. And that is what we find in Murder Like Clockwork – a traditional ‘locked room mystery’, some fun in investigation and a satisfying solution. But it is not all tradition, Murder Like Clockwork feels very contemporary and has some nice modern and unusual flourishes.

The only drawback for me coming to this series in the second book is that it relies too much on assumed knowledge of what happened in the first novel, and backstories and relationships between characters, even going so far as to state, more than once, things like, “after everything you’ve been through” without any explanation to what ‘everything’ may refer. These hints don’t inspire me to read the first in the series, so much as to simply irritate me when I’m reading the second. But that is a (relatively) minor quibble - Murder Like Clockwork is definitely one of the treasures to be found in the cosy crime section.

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder Like Clockwork is the kind of mystery that delights in keeping you slightly off balance. Nicola Whyte takes the classic locked-room setup and spins it into something witty, charming, and deliciously puzzling.

Audrey Brooks, the meticulous cleaner who tends to the Petrov house and its dozens of antique clocks, is a wonderfully relatable heroine. When she stumbles upon a corpse only for it to vanish minutes later—along with every trace of blood—the stage is set for a mystery that’s as much about timing as it is about truth. The detail of the clock running four minutes slow is a perfect touch: eerie, intriguing, and symbolic of the novel’s playful manipulation of time.

Audrey’s partnership with Lewis adds warmth and humour to the story, grounding the twists in human connection. Their dynamic makes the sleuthing feel accessible and fun, even as the stakes rise. The London mansion, with its elegant emptiness and ticking clocks, provides a gorgeously atmospheric backdrop that feels both cozy and unsettling.

Whyte’s prose is light on its feet, balancing suspense with wit. Fans of Richard Osman and Janice Hallett will find plenty to love here: clever puzzles, quirky characters, and a mystery that refuses to play by the rules.

Murder Like Clockwork is a charmingly inventive whodunnit that proves the best mysteries aren’t just about who did it, but when—and how. It’s a playful, twist-filled read that will leave you smiling even as you’re second-guessing every clue.

My thanks to Nicola Whyte, the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

[Homerun2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This follow-up to 10 Marchfield Square was even better than the series debut.

Celeste is the 80-something proprietor of a most unusual residential square in London, assisted by her valet Dixon. They have quite a mysterious background which is never fully revealed. Celeste chooses her tenants carefully and part of the cast is Audrey, whip smart and kind-hearted, and a house cleaner by choice. The other main character is Lewis, a reluctant corporate recruiter by day and write of crime novels the rest of the time.

Audrey is on one of her regularly scheduled cleaning jobs when she discovers a dead and bloody body in a chair upstairs. She runs out of the house and calls the police, but by the time they arrive, the body -- and any sign of violence -- have disappeared. Audrey is unshakably certain about what she saw. She accidentally calls Lewis and the two of them scour the house discovering a minute blood splatter that bears out her story. She informs her roommate's police girlfriend, who reluctantly agrees to help.

The story unfolds with Lewis and Audrey investigating and trying to persuade the police that a crime has occurred. They are determined and intelligent, and they start putting pieces together. Lots of great banter and a well-thought out and cunning plot. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Mrs Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audrey Brooks loves to clean and takes pride in her work. One of her clients is Anton Petrov a shadowy figure who requires that she arrives on time every week and winds up his clock collection. The house is unoccupied and so Audrey sees no problem when she arrives early one morning. However, she stumbles on a murder victim surrounded by a great deal of blood so immediately leaves the house to summon the police. Sadly for Audrey, when the police arrive, there is no sign of the blood or the body and she is not believed. This is the cue for Audrey and her friend Lewis to launch their own investigation. Along the way, they must work out where Mr Petrov ( a close friend of Audrey's neighbour Celeste) fits into the jigsaw and how a body and a bloody sheet can disappear from a building with no one seeing it happen. Although set in modern times, this novel sometimes has the feel of an earlier time with its locked room mystery and characters who come from the world of espionage. I enjoyed Nicola Whyte's ability to create believable characters and a plot with a believable solution. This book would be ideal reading for fans of Richard Osman.

[Julie Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this on NetGalley and loved it. It’s a character-led mystery that is well-plotted and fascinating. Cleaner Audrey and would-be author Lewis are chalk and cheese but are brought together by a fascination for solving a mystery. In this case it’s a murder and Audrey is the one who found the body. This sounds like a job for the police but there’s a problem, the body has disappeared and Audrey is dismissed as a fanciful person with a vivid imagination! They set out to prove this is not the case and there was a victim. They do receive some support from the police who do not want them interfering but can’t complain too loudly as they are not investigating fully themselves! Once the body turns up, things move more rapidly and finally the truth is uncovered. Audrey and Lewis and their cast of supporters have unique ways of investigating using each person’s individual skills and the power of community to find the answers. I loved all the characters in the story and could not have guessed the perpetrator of the crime or the motive until the final reveal! I am looking forward to reading more from this author and I’m off to read the first book in this series now!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a complex locked room mystery. It set in contemporary London but with a cast of characters and a setting that are reminiscent of a bygone era that will appeal to Agatha Christie fans
Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) | Raven Books for the ARC. My review is voluntary.
Audrey and Lewis are unlikely colleagues but come together to solve a murder mystery. Audrey finds a dead body which has disappears before the police arrive at the scene. Russian business men, dodgy property developers and organised criminals are all in the frame giving this cozy mystery a slightly thrilling edge. However, it would have been even more taut if it had been a little shorter. Some passages where superfluous.
The two sleuths live in apartments in Marchwood Square and are ably assisted by their neighbours, who all seem to be surprisingly well equipped to help out. At the centre of it all is Celeste who opens and closes the book. Celeste is the owner of the the Square and it would seem she has carefully selects her tenants. We are left wondering, who exactly is she and what is she up to and looking forward to finding out more in the next book.

[A Bookworm Crafts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder Like Clockwork is the sequel to 10 Marchfield Square and sees Audrey and Lewis drawn into another improbable but entertaining mystery. When Audrey arrives at one of her cleaning jobs and discovers a dead body in a blood-soaked room, she does the sensible thing and calls the police. The problem is that, by the time they arrive, only 15 minutes later, the body and every trace of blood have vanished. Convinced she has not imagined it, Audrey teams up once again with Lewis to work out not only who was killed, but, more importantly, who could have cleaned the crime scene so perfectly in so little time.

This was an enjoyable cosy mystery with a clever central premise, a few satisfying twists, and a cast of likeable characters. I enjoyed spending more time with this amateur detective duo and getting a little more insight into Celeste and her mysterious past.

A recommended read for fans of Richard Osman, Janice Hallett, and Only Murders in the Building.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Gaynor Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in the series about cleaner Audrey and would-be author Lewis, and they have another murder to solve. This time it is as much about how the killer did it as who it was that did it. I have to admit that I was bamboozled, it really does seem impossible. The answer is convincing however, and also serves to develop the intrigue around the characters of Celeste and Dixon, which I hope will be explained further in future instalments.
Overall I very much enjoyed this book. It is an easy read, and well written, and I did like the way that the "impossible" crime was explained. I did feel in parts though as if the author is still finding her voice - at some points it comes across very clearly but occasionally it does feel a bit vague. I am sure that she will continue to develop as a writer though and there is plenty to recommend this book with the promise of even better to come. I look forward to reading the next instalment of Lewis and Audrey's adventures!
Thank you to the publishers for letting me have a copy of this book via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.

[M.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder Like Clockwork is an intriguing mystery set in contemporary London, endeavouring to unravel the seemingly impossible crime of a murder whose body disappears between being found and then reported to the police, if indeed, any murder has been committed. I didn't realise it was part of a series, and I would say, readers may wish to start with the first book because there are references to it throughout this novel.

There are three main characters in the novel, and the narrative splits between them, although mainly it is just 2 characters, with the somewhat mysterious owner of Marchfield Square, the houses where our two main characters live,making the occasional appearance.

It's quite a quick, fun mystery, Lewis and Audrey managing to investigate a great deal, with a little help from a friend in the police. It's also quite tightly plotted, although there were one or two moments, where I felt it lost its way a little bit. But, the eventual resolution is clever and well revealed.

A good murder mystery, sometimes too wrapped up in with the wider inhabitants of Marchfield Square, but definitely coming good in the end. I will have to go back and read book 1.

[Farah G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audrey and her friend Lewis may seem like ordinary people, if a little eccentric at times, but there is more to them then meets the eye (as anyone who is aware of their past shenanigans will know).

The same must be said of the mysterious death at the home of one of Audrey's clients - the mystery lying not least in the fact that man's corpse disappears after Audrey, the cleaner, finds it and goes to raise the alarm...

With the police disinclined to take Audrey's claims seriously, it is up to the amateur sleuthing duo to dig out the truth of the matter!

An entertaining mystery with plenty of twists, this will be devoured by cozy crime fans and earns a well deserved 3.5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

[Sue Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved 10 Marchfield Square and was really looking forward to reading the second book in the series, Murder Like Clockwork, and it was brilliant. It was so nice to be back with Audrey and Lewis and their dynamic was so refreshingly good.
Audrey is loving her job as a cleaner until she discovers a dead body in Mr Petrov’s house in a room covered in blood. The only problem is that when the police arrive fifteen minutes later there is no body and no blood. The only thing that seems wrong is that the clock in the room is now running four minutes slow. Without a body it is down to Audrey with the help of her reluctant friend Lewis to solve the mystery.
Once again Nicola has given us a story with a delicious plot and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing throughout. Excellent!

[Sandy Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great story from 10 Marchfield Square author, Nicola Whyte. Whilst in one of the posh central London houses she cleans, Audrey, a conscientious and meticulous housecleaner, finds a dead body, but by the time the police arrive, the body has disappeared and the police definitely don’t believe her. So, who to turn to – of course - her neighbour and previous sleuth companion, Lewis. A well written story and great read, you’ll be kept busy trying to work out: who’s knows what; who’s done what and why? With the introduction of new characters, I’m really hoping the author is already writing a further story in the investigative lives of Audrey and Lewis. My thanks to NetGalley and the author for an ARC.

[Catarina ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me a copy of this book.
I liked this one more than I liked 10 Marchfield Square. The murder mystery was very unique and I was so curious the whole book. I really like Audrey and Lewis as the main characters, I feel like they complement each other very well and their dynamic is entertaining to read.
The only downside to me was that the ending didn't impress me.