The Clockwork Coroner (Detectives For Hire Book 2)

In the smoky streets of 1886 Philadelphia, former Pinkerton detectives Junius Price and Archibald “Archie” McNittle are hired to investigate what appears to be a routine adultery case. But when a respected judge suddenly dies after publicly consuming a miracle tonic during a grand demonstration in Independence Square, the two detectives are pulled into a far more dangerous mystery.Officially, the death is ruled natural causes by the city’s revolutionary mechanical coroner — Coroner-7 — an invention hailed as the future of justice and forensic science. Yet the judge’s widow refuses to believe the verdict and secretly hires Junius and Archie to uncover the truth.As the detectives descend into Philadelphia’s shadowed underworld of political corruption, dockside power struggles, secret affairs, and industrial ambition, they begin to suspect that the city’s celebrated inventor, Professor Horatio Peabody, is hiding more than scientific genius behind his polished reputation.Their investigation leads from opulent mansions and grand opera halls to textile warehouses, hidden laboratories, and the grim basement morgue beneath City Hall, where Coroner-7 waits silently in the darkness.What begins as a simple case soon becomes a deadly race against time as Junius and Archie uncover a conspiracy fueled by greed, revenge, obsession, and the dangerous belief that machines are superior to mankind itself.Blending historical mystery, detective noir, steampunk intrigue, and Gothic suspense, The Clockwork Coroner is the thrilling second installment in the Detectives For Hire series — where every clue ticks closer to catastrophe. Read more