Classic Cashes In

Book excerpt: A British car detective steers a ’36 Packard straight into a deadly world of elite family secrets in a series “very much in the tradition of Dick Francis” (Kirkus Reviews). Philip Moxton, a wealthy banker in the west of Kent, is anything but a routine client for Jack Colby, freelance investigator for the Kent police car-theft unit. Moxton is desperate for a very particular 1936 Packard One-Twenty saloon. Once, he was obliged to sell it. Now he wants to buy it back—anonymously, at any price, and soon. Because as Moxton tells it, he’s going to be murdered. The case stalls when Colby tracks down the current owner, actor Tom Herrick. Herrick knows why Moxton wants to get his hands on it—a mystery involving an ongoing Moxton-Herrick family feud, and a multi-million-dollar legacy. For Colby, the search for the truth becomes treacherous as a relentless killer gears up to strike again and again. Everyone in the shadow of the prized Packard is a suspect. And anyone could be the next victim.