Carlos Bayne
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Carlos Bayne
by Carlos Bayne
Two disgraced Pinkerton detectives. One poisoned judge. A conspiracy that reaches the highest offices of Philadelphia.
Junius Price and Archibald McNittle trade agency badges for independence, scraping by on divorce cases and missing dogs—until a widow's grief drags them into something far deadlier. Doctor Horatio Peabody's miracle Elixir of Vigor is killing the city's elite. The evidence points to mechanical coroners, forged death certificates, and men who bury truth like bodies.
With their office ransacked, the police hunting them, and a gala full of suspects between them and justice, Junius and Archie have only each other—and a stubborn refusal to quit.
Some partnerships are forged in fire. Others, in the fog-shrouded docks of a city that wants them dead.
Philadelphia, 1886. The Centennial Exposition has the city giddy with progress—electric lights, steam engines, and Doctor Horatio Peabody's miraculous Elixir of Vigor, guaranteed to restore youth and vitality to even the most withered soul.
When Judge William Winthrop drops dead during Peabody's public demonstration, everyone calls it a tragic accident. Everyone except his widow.
Eleanor Winthrop hires Junius Price and Archibald McNittle, former Pinkerton agents now scraping by as independent detectives, to find the hand that turned her husband's glass into a weapon. The case should be straightforward: identify the poisoner, collect the fee, return to their usual diet of divorce work and missing dogs.
But Junius and Archie don't do straightforward.
Their investigation uncovers a conspiracy that threads through Philadelphia's power structure like rot through timber. Mechanical coroners falsifying death certificates. City officials taking bribes to look the other way. A shipping magnate with blood on his books and a Harbor Master pulling strings in the dark. The deeper they dig, the more dangerous the ground becomes—until their office is ransacked, their evidence destroyed, and Junius himself snatched by the very men they're hunting.
With the Mayor's Gala looming and a fresh corpse certain to follow, Archie must navigate police who want him arrested, criminals who want him dead, and an antidote that might arrive too late. All while carrying the weight of a partnership that has survived dismissal, poverty, and every attempt to break it.
Some mysteries are solved with deduction. Others require a stubborn refusal to abandon your partner, even when the fog closes in and the docks offer nothing but cold water and silence.
The Clockwork Coroner continues with a detective duo for readers who like their mysteries twisty, their banter sharp, and their loyalty bone-deep.
Title is vital | Keep the pen moving | Write what you know
Carlos Bayne is a storyteller drawn to the shadowed intersections of history, mystery, and invention. His work blends historical fiction, noir-inspired detective narratives, and speculative steampunk elements, creating worlds where logic and machinery collide with human ambition and moral ambiguity. He is the author of the Detectives For Hire series, beginning with The Murder of Crowe and continuing with The Clockwork Coroner. These stories follow former Pinkerton agents navigating post-Civil War America as they unravel conspiracies that blur the line between science and the supernatural. At the center of his latest work is a world where early forensic science, political corruption, and experimental technology converge in increasingly dangerous ways. When not writing, Carlos is often developing interconnected story worlds, refining character arcs, and building narrative frameworks that span novels, visuals, and interactive storytelling. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where the atmosphere often mirrors the tone of his fiction—moody, layered, and quietly electric.
A Steampunk Whodunnit
Darien, Georgia, 1881. When Madame Crowe is found murdered in her own boarding house, Pinkerton detectives Junius Price and Archibald McNittle must navigate a town that wants nothing to do with "Yankee" investigators. As they dig into the victim's past, they uncover a woman who survived stowing away from Germany, escaped a brothel, built her own empire, and made dangerous enemies along the way. With multiple suspects, conflicting motives, and a steampunk lie detector their only advantage, the detectives race to find a killer in a case where everyone had reason to want Crowe dead. A historical mystery where the truth proves more elusive than justice.