Arsène Lupin - The Blind Watchmaker - Arsène Lupin, #1

Time does not flow the way you think it does.

Arsène Lupin – the greatest phantom of the century, the most cunning secret, the most defiant smile – is back. But this is not the Lupin of his grandfather Maurice Leblanc's novels. This is his grandson, a man carrying his legacy like a hidden wound, a thief who leaves no fingerprints and is erased from memories but never forgotten.

When an antique pocket watch engraved with a mysterious L leads him to a microdot inside a stolen diamond, young Arsène discovers that his grandfather's greatest heist was never a painting – it was time itself. The legendary Blind Watchmaker, a clock that can tear the fabric of time, has been broken into four pieces and scattered across the world. Now a secret organisation called the Watchmakers, led by a patchwork-faced monster called the Master, is hunting for those pieces. And so is a ghost from the past: Sherlock Holmes – or someone wearing his face.

From the drizzle of Paris to the misty canals of Amsterdam, from Venice's submerged library to Prague's mirror labyrinth, from Istanbul's Golden Horn to Rome's Pantheon, from the shadow of the Pyramids to the frozen city beneath Antarctica, Arsène Lupin races against an ancient entity named Chronos – time itself. He will encounter clones, face thieves of faces, lose his own heart, and discover that he is not just a man, but a lost day waiting to be found.

"Time is a river," his grandfather whispers. "And you have learned to swim in it. But sometimes, you must become the river itself."

A full-length novel of approximately 48,500 words. Part historical mystery, part supernatural thriller, part love letter to classic adventure fiction – Arsène Lupin: The Blind Watchmaker will stop your time, one tick at a time.