Read A Review:

Rebecca Moore finds a naked dead man in the glass beader in her classic automobile repair shop Vintage and Classics.  To complicate matters more, the dead man was Graham Stuck, the owner of Capitol Chassis – the competition. 

Rebecca inherited the shop from her Uncle Walt.  He had hired ex-cons and Rebecca and not changed a thing.  They were great.  Unfortunately Frank Lewes, her head man, becomes the prime suspect in the eyes of Sheriff Bradley Zimmer.  Then a DC detective, Mick Hagan, appears out of nowhere.  Rebecca can’t figure out what he’s doing in Head Tide, Maryland.  When he starts assisting the sheriff, she is even more baffled.   

Her ex-lover, David, had recently killed himself.  She had left her journalism job at the Post to run the V&C.  When Hagan mentions David, she cannot figure out what his tie-in is.  David had killed himself when she was uncovering investor corruption. 

She goes to pay her condolences to Vera Stuck, the widow.  She talks in circles and isn’t too sure what she was trying to tell her. 

Rebecca hires Joachim Delacroix to defend her and the ex-cons should they need it.  He ends up helping her try to solve the murder.  In the meantime, they are trying to get the sheriff to keep her shop open so they can get Hal Lindeman’s Hisso and Todd Shelley’s Bentley ready in six days to ship to Paris for the Paris-Peking race.   

This is a great mystery set in a vintage car shop.  I am not a car fan, but I found this to be a very entertaining and enjoyable read.  It is also a fast read.  She has a great start to what I hope to be a long series. 

Rebecca is a well-written character.  I like the tension between her and Mick.  The ex-cons lend a real diversity to the story.   I like the setting near DC as I know a lot of the areas that she mentions. 

My only complaint was that it takes Rebecca too long to remember a key piece of evidence. 

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading many more in this series.

Dawn Dowdle