The Clocks is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 7 November 1963[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year.

The novel marks the return of partial first-person narrative, a technique that Christie had largely abandoned earlier in the Poirot sequence but which she had employed in the previous Ariadne Oliver novel, The Pale Horse (1961).

[5] In contrast, Barnard's review in 1990 said it was a "lively, well-narrated, highly unlikely late specimen" of Christie's writing.

[6] Sheila Webb, a typist at Miss Martindale's agency, arrives at her afternoon appointment at Wilbraham Crescent in Crowdean, Sussex.

Their homes adjoin the murder site on the street or from the back gardens in this unusually arranged Victorian housing development.

Mrs Merlina Rival (original name Flossie Gapp) identifies the dead man as her one-time husband, Harry Castleton.

The clocks are a red herring, as is the presence of Sheila, and the removal of the dead man's wallet and tailor marks in the clothing.

She returned early from lunch on the day of the murder because her shoe was broken, unnoticed by Miss Martindale, the owner.

Sixteen years later, the first wife was announced to be the heiress to an overseas fortune as the last-known living relative.

The plan was simple, with additions like the clocks taken from an unpublished mystery story that Miss Martindale had read in a manuscript.

Poirot had assumed this trip took place, so the man's passport would be found in a country different from where he was murdered, and long after friends and family in Canada had missed him on his holiday in Europe.

Colin realises that Sheila had taken it and tossed it in the neighbour's dustbin, seeing it was her very own clock, mislaid on the way to a repair shop.

Miss Millicent Pebmarsh is the centre of the ring passing information to the other side in the Cold War, using Braille to encode their messages.

This begins well, with the discovery of a stranger in a suburban sitting-room, with four strange clocks all showing the same time; but thereafter the story, though as readable as ever, does tend to hang fire.

Also there is one very corny item, the vital witness killed when on the point of disclosing crucial information, which is quite unworthy of Miss Christie.

Contains (chapter 14) Poirot's considered reflections on other fictional detectives, and the various styles and national schools of crime writing.

Guest stars include Tom Burke as Lieutenant Colin Race, Jaime Winstone as Sheila Webb, Lesley Sharp as Miss Martindale, and Anna Massey as Miss Pebmarsh; this was Massey's last performance, before her death, and the ITV broadcast of the episode is dedicated to her memory.

Whilst the novel's main plot is retained, a number of significant changes were made by the adaptation, including a modification of the novel's sub-plot due to the change in setting: The novel was first serialised in the UK weekly magazine Woman's Own in six abridged instalments from 9 November – 14 December 1963 with illustrations by Herb Tauss.

In the US a condensed version of the novel appeared in the January 1964 (Volume 156, Number 1) issue of Cosmopolitan with illustrations by Al Parker.