It’s an exciting time in the publishing world as talk of ebooks dominates the market, even though I’m sure that the printed word will co-exit with them happily once it’s settled down. Several of my titles are already in ebook form, including a collection of five of my short stories, That’s the Way He Did It. The first of my Jack Colby car detective series, written with the help of my classic car enthusiast husband Jim, is also available not only in audio but as an ebook, so look out for Classic in the Barn.
The second in the series, Classic Calls the Shots, is also now published – and audio rights have already been sold. Ebook coming shortly. Frogs Hill, where Jack Colby lives and where his classic car restoration work is carried out, is near Pluckley in Kent – a village reputed to be the most haunted in Kent. Some say the most haunted in England. I’ve never met any ghosts myself, and nor has Jack – yet. But it’s an idea for the future. Classic Calls the Shots is so-called because – guess what – Jack’s called in initially to investigate the theft of a rare Auburn sportscar from a film set. The studios are set several miles from Pluckley, just outside the village of Lenham. Pluckley itself has two good pubs, one of which is an old hunting lodge near the railway station called the Dering Arms seen in the photo. Its owner and chef Jim Buss is a classic car enthusiast, holding gatherings of owners and their cars each month. I have a special fondness for the pub for a personal reason. In her old age my mother would often recall a holiday she had spent with her parents and baby brother well before the First World War. It had begun at a railway station and she remembered as a young child herself walking down an endlessly long road to reach journey’s end, the cottage her parents had rented. She couldn’t remember the village’s name but after some detective work Jim and I discovered that it was Pluckley and were able to take her there to make the walk again. In the photo she is sitting resting after having made the walk over eighty years later.