Meet Jack Colby, the car detective working from Frogs Hill Farm in Kent, where he and his partners also operate a classic car restoration business. Frogs Hill is a tucked-away, quiet spot but Jack’s cases quickly change all that.

Who writes Jack’s cases? He thinks he writes them, but in fact I do, although only with the collaboration of my husband James Myers. He provides the car input, as he is a lifelong car buff and American born, but has lived in England (and before that in France) for many years. Jack loves all cars but has a special fondness for classics, be they veterans chugging along to Brighton in the famous London to Brighton annual rally, or the sleek 1938 Lagonda drophead – which appears in his first full length case, Classic in the Barn which will be published in hardback in February 2011 and later in paperback.

In it Jack not only stumbles across a dream car decaying in a remote barn, but comes face to face with his dream woman – an angry woman, Polly Davis. When murder follows, Jack is hot on the trail and the revs mount.

However, the Lagonda of Classic in the Barn is running neck and neck in the road race to publication with a 1937 Cord 812 Beverly, which appears in ‘Seeing Red’, a short story to be published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, in which Jack attends a car show but spots more than the red Cord to be published in February 2011.

Once a geologist in the oil business, Jack is well used to sniffing around, which is invaluable in his current detection work. He is called in by the Kent police specialist crime unit on cases where his expertise can help either on classics or modern cars, but it is in the former that his heart lies. His nose for trouble leads him on his own individual path where classics such as the Lagonda present themselves, and he is well supported in his detection work by his partners, sparky 24-year-old Zoe Grant and crusty Len Vickers.

And the dream woman? A brief and stormy marriage has robbed Jack of any desire for speedy commitment – so far – but that doesn’t stop him being ever hopeful.

Jack would like to speak for himself, however, so here’s a taster from Classic in the Barn:

Okay, Jack, I told myself, as I persuaded a thin part of the hedge to become a gap, a 48-year-old classic car sleuth in a silver Alfa Romeo Sportwagon (and a Gordon Keeble at home under wraps) would do nicely as a knight to rescue a real princess such as this 1938 Lagonda. Trouble ahead? I had left the oil business, but I still knew how to play tough-guy – and in any branch of the car business this can come in handy. Right now my accelerator pedal was saying:
‘Go!’

Unfortunately I turned off the tiny warning signal that was saying: Stay right where you are. Instead I somehow found myself on the other side of the hedge, only a few leaves and twigs the worse for wear.
And there she was. My beauty.

Dream car or dream woman? Maybe both. Look out for the latest news on Jack Colby on this site and check out Jack's very own blog at www.jackcolby.co.uk/classiccars.