In Victorian London, shrouded in fog, a bizarre locked-room murder draws private detective Elliott Grant and his sharp-witted assistant Noel Weston into a mystery that transcends life and death.
Aboard the Northern Star Express, wealthy businessman Alfred Charlton is strangled to death inside a locked compartment. Every suspect has a perfect alibi. The only clue is a mysterious pocket watch from the East. It can replay the final three seconds of a dead person’s life, and it can also give a silent warning tremor before death strikes.
With calm reason and meticulous deduction, Elliott pursues the material truth through a web of lies. Noel, meanwhile, relies on extraordinary emotional intuition to touch upon the malice and secrets buried in everyone’s heart. But they gradually discover that this case is not merely a contest of human nature: it is also bound up with a century-old fate entwined with the pocket watch. The whispers of Devon Harrow, a traveler from the East, sound like a prophecy of destiny:
“The seal... has begun to break.”
When the train breaks through the blizzard and the puzzle is solved, the true price is only just beginning to emerge. The pocket watch has never chosen only the truth. It has also chosen the soul destined to be sacrificed to seal it away.
