Synopsis: The Tick-Tock Hearts

Clara Dietrich's father has been missing for eight years when he is found dead on the shore of Lake Michigan, his heart cut from his chest.

It is the year 1901, and Chicago is booming with life and new crime. The police are baffled by Eli Dietrich's murder, and his killer remains loose. When Clara realizes the case is about to become cold, she follows a lead of her own - the strange man who watched her intently at her father's funeral.

Clara's clue-seeking sends her deep into the underworld of Victorian Chicago, where she learns that her father had been forced to serve an unknown power under threat of his family sharing his horrible fate. Now he's gone, and they have set their sights on Clara. She must figure out how to stop them before they find her and submit her to a fate worse than death.

Strange men and women are following her now. Men and women with no beating hearts, but who live and breathe nonetheless...