The Clockmakers' Lie

Every clock is telling the truth. Except yours.

For nearly two centuries, the Meridian Circle has shaped human behaviour through time itself. Railway timetables, factory clocks, digital watches and connected devices were never simply inventions of convenience. They were steps towards a world in which every deadline, delay and appointment could be controlled.

Historian Dr Adam Harcourt discovers the pattern after his oldest friend dies under suspicious circumstances, leaving behind an antique railway timetable, an obsolete digital watch and a chilling warning:

They did not invent the clock. They invented lateness.

Alongside cybersecurity researcher Leila Nasser, Adam follows a trail from Victorian railway offices and industrial mills to Greenwich, Brussels and a hidden network embedded in billions of devices.

Its final phase, Synchrony, will give every person a subtly different version of time-enough to separate crowds, derail protests and make collective resistance almost impossible.

Now branded a terrorist and hunted by the people who control the world's clocks, Adam has four days to expose the truth.

But destroying the system could bring down transport, financial markets and emergency services. To save the future, he must prove that modern civilisation has been living by a clock designed to lie.

The Clockmakers' Lie is an intelligent, fast-paced conspiracy thriller about secret societies, digital surveillance, psychological manipulation and the invisible systems governing everyday life.