Classic at Bay

May 23, 2016
Vintage car buffs will best appreciate Myers’s pedestrian eighth outing for British car detective Jack Colby (after 2015’s Classic in the Dock). Adora Ferne, a London cabaret singer who was notorious in the 1960s, wants to acquire one more classic Jaguar for her collection (she already has 12). Jack is prepared to broker the sale with the Earl of Storrington, the owner of the vehicle Adora covets. When the manager of Adora’s Jaguar collection is murdered shortly after the earl rejects her offer, Jack sets out to find a killer and a motive. He uncovers a close-knit group of Adora’s former and current admirers, as well as secrets surrounding the mysterious death of her fiancé 50 years before in 1964. Jack interviews many briefly sketched people about events that occurred at that time as he drives around the Kent countryside, but multiple points of view do little to quicken the pace or heighten the tension. Agent: Sara Keane, Keane Kataria Literary (U.K.).

May 1, 2016
A simple job turns into a tricky case for Jack Colby, Car Detective. Danny Carter, manager of the Jaguar collection Adora Ferne keeps in the Lair, has engaged Jack to persuade Gabriel Allyn, Earl of Storrington, to sell his 1937 SS 100 2.4 litre Jaguar to Adora. His Lordship promptly turns Jack down in no uncertain terms. Adora is a legendary singer who's received 12 classic Jaguars as gifts from lovers and husbands and is determined to add a 13th to her collection. She insists that the unwilling Danny show Jack the collection installed in the Lair. Each magnificent vehicle is displayed with a picture of Adora and the car's donor. Adora tells Jack that Danny will explain another job she wants done. She's received threatening letters about burning down the Lair and killing her. When Danny is murdered in the Lair, Jack, who often works with the police on cases involving cars (Classic in the Pits, 2014, etc.), is hired to investigate. His inquiries lead him back to the Three Parrots, a club where Adora sang 50 years ago. Many of her husbands and lovers were involved with the club, which closed soon after the unsolved murder of Lance Benny, a race-car driver cast as Adora's next husband, who had just departed from the club before his body was found nearby. The son and daughter from two of Adora's marriages are appalled to learn that she planned to leave everything to Danny, who, it turns out, was collecting money every year from the former lovers in the guise of funding a charitable foundation. Jack's conviction that the answer lies in the past is bolstered when another of Adora's former admirers is found murdered in the Lair. Myers' eighth in the Jack Colby series, one of her best, has a surfeit of suspects, a complicated back story filled with quirky characters, and a surprise ending.

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July 1, 2016
Myers (Classic in the Dock, 2015) continues her Classic series featuring automobile collector and occasional detective Jack Colby, revving up the pace and the action in another mystery steeped in automobile arcana. What more could the owner of a dozen classic Jaguar cars desire? A thirteenth, of course! When notorious cabaret singer Adora Ferne commissions Colby to procure a rare 1937 SS 100 Jaguar sports car from the Earl of Storrington, she assures him that price is no object, but Jack doesn't count on murder being part of the deal. As rumor has it, each of Adora's beloved Jaguars represents one of her former husbands or lovers, and though the earl refuses to sell, she is a most determined collector with a shady past chock-full of scandalous secrets. When a pair of murders disrupts the quest, Jack turns his attention to the crimes, applying his considerable knowledge of classic cars to solving the case.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)