Sam Sedgman, The Clockwork Conspiracy, Bloomsbury, April 2024, 320 pp., RRP $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781526665386
This is a rollicking yarn about a most unlikely conspiracy. Isaac Turner’s father Diggory is chief horologist for Big Ben and the British Houses of Parliament. He disappears from the tower on the night the clocks go back. At the same time, MPs are debating the idea of introducing a 10-hour day, with 100 minutes in each hour, and 100 seconds in each minute. Sound improbable? Yes, and it would be chaotic, but it was done in 1795 (according to the author) after the French Revolution.
Isaac and his new friend Hattie chase clues through London in their search for Diggory and while trying to discover the instigator of the sinister plot to change the world as everyone knows it. They race across roofs, along the Thames by boat, in and out of secret tunnels within the Houses of Parliament. As with the best whodunnit chases, the goodies (the children) win and beat the evil adults.
The book is full of fascinating facts about clocks, time, the Houses of Parliament as buildings, the workings of the UK Parliament. There’s an excellent diagram of Big Ben as well as a bird’s eye view of the whole Parliament site. I appreciated the background information from Sedgman which included the other London clocks mentioned in the story and the Royal Observatory. There’s also advice about not copying the children’s behaviour: like climbing on rooftops and breaking into vans.
The Clockwork Conspiracy is highly recommended for middle school readers who love scientific facts combined with some travel but also for those readers who want a fast-paced read with lots of mysteries.
Reviewed by Maureen Mann
