Clockwork or All Wound Up by Philip Pullman

Tick, tock, tick, tock! Some stories are like that. Once you've wend them up, nothing will stop them ... 

 

A tormented apprentice clock-maker, a deadly mechanical knight in armour - and the sinister Dr Kalmenius, who some say is the devil ... Wind up these characters, fit them into a story on a cold winter's evening, with the snow swirling down, and suddenly life and the story begin to merge in a peculiarly macabre - and unstoppable - way. 

 

Almost like clockwork ...