Classic in the Clouds: A Case for Jack Colby, Car Detective

In Myers’s lackluster third outing for Jack Colby (after 2012’s Classic Calls the Shots), the British “car detective” joins a scramble to find one of the two De Dion Boutons that took part in the famous Peking to Paris rally of 1907. Maj. Stanley Hopchurch, the “Mad Major,” asks Jack to locate the antique vehicle, which is rumored to be somewhere around Kent. If found, the car would be the centerpiece of a planned re-enactment of the rally with English towns dressed as the original far-flung locales. Jack accepts the assignment, while also helping regular contact Dave Jennings of the Kent Car Crime Unit to investigate auto restorer Alfred King’s suspicious death. The quest for the De Dion Bouton, meanwhile, only succeeds in opening a Pandora’s box of claimants, plotters, and murder. Exotic vehicles and car lore aplenty should appeal to auto buffs in this otherwise pedestrian whodunit. Agent: Dorothy Lumley, Dorian Literary. (Feb.)