Classic in the Dock

July 20, 2015
In British author Myers’s satisfying seventh Jack Colby adventure (after 2014’s Classic Cashes In), a legendary Alfa Romeo Spyder that raced in the 1938 Mille Miglia intrigues our Kent-based car detective. Unfortunately for Jack, the car has a haunted past, and his longtime friend Giovanni Donati, who’s supposed to paint the vehicle, is accused of murdering Hugh Compton, the scion of a prominent local family. Giovanni has no memory of the incident, but both he and his beloved Ferrari Daytona Spider were covered in Hugh’s blood. The body, however, is nowhere to be found. Jack is sure that his friend has been framed, but Giovanni isn’t talking. When Jack begins looking into the alleged murder, he finds himself immersed in the village of Plumshaw’s decades-old feud between its two principal families, the Comptons and the Makepeaces. Full of car facts, WWII history, and plenty of lust, greed, and deceit, this entry has something for everyone. Agent: Sara Keane, Keane Kataria Literary Agency (U.K.).

September 1, 2015
Automobile collector, restorer, and sometime-detective Jack Colby races to solve another vehicle-driven homicide. When automobile-artist Giovanni Donati drives into the Kent countryside in his bright-red Ferrari 1972 Daytona Spyder, Jack is surprised to learn that his free-spirited friend has accepted a commission to paint a classic 1930s Alfa Romeo racing car housed in a neighboring village. After all, the Compton family has a reputation for outdated patrician crustiness, and rumor has it that a village feud has been brewing for some time. After Giovanni is wrongly accused of murder, Jack backs up into the past to solve a crime that has its roots in the tangled history of the car and its owners. This smoothly plotted and detailed cozy is suitably grounded in classic-car legends and lore.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)