The John Hawthorne Detective Stories

The Time Trick at Snow Mountain Villa is the opening installment in the John Hawthorne Detective Stories series. The story takes place in the winter of 1905, in an isolated villa in the Scottish Highlands. Industrialist Charles Warrington invites six friends and relatives to a private dinner, but at the stroke of midnight, he is found dead in his study, stabbed through the heart with a dagger. The doors and windows are locked from the inside, and there are no footprints in the snow. The only clue is the broken pocket watch clutched in Warrington's hand, its hands stopped at 11:55. Yet every suspect claims to have an airtight alibi.

Detective John Hawthorne is stranded at the villa by a blizzard and forced to take up the investigation. Through rigorous logical deduction and analysis of the physical evidence, he must unravel the killer's “time trick”: How was the time of death faked? How was a locked room created? And how were all the guests made witnesses for one another at the same time? As the investigation progresses, the dark history of the Warrington family gradually comes to light. Motives tangled in greed, betrayal, and revenge peel away the layers of lies beneath every perfect facade...