Murder Like Clockwork is the second (standalone) book in a cozy British crime series by Nicola Whyte. Released 12th May 2026 by Hachette on their Union Square & Co imprint, it's 368 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook & audio formats have a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
This is a light, very well engineered, engaging standalone mystery set in London and with an ensemble cast of characters, most of whom live facing in and around a courtyard with homes surrounding it. They're varied, and the titular series main characters are a professional high-end cleaner and a probably slightly neurodivergent, neurotic crime writer.
It's got such a charmingly Christie-esque setup (stately home, disappearing corpse/crime scene, background machinations, stratospherically wealthy people doing wealthy-people-stuff, some absurdist comedy, a crashing denouement and satisfying resolution, and a foreshadowing for the next book(s)), that it was a lovely light interlude.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours 31 minutes and is beautifully read by series narrator Nneka Okoye. She has a well modulated professionally trained alto voice and in this read, does an impressively wide range of accents, and characters across a range of ages and both male and female. The international accents, especially Russian, are more "sketched in/implied" than accurate and present no difficulty in comprehension at all. Much of the dialogue is rapid and she manages the character shifts without problems or hitches. Sound and production quality are high throughout the read.
Although it's the second book in the series, necessary backstory is written in, so it works perfectly well as a standalone.
Four stars, high quality, classic cozy crime (even a bit of an espionage element). It would be an excellent binge/buddy read, or for public or home library acquisition. Clean language and no sexual content.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
