A killer who strikes in the middle of an event makes England’s car-racing circuit even more dangerous than usual.
Adrian Westlake was orphaned by a car crash—his father and mother drove into a fatal accident on the way home from a race—but that hasn’t kept him from taking the wheel of a Formula Ford. A rookie driver in the middle of a crowded field, Aidy naturally looks up to Alex Fanning, whose performance so far favors him to win the Clark Paints Formula Ford Championship, and can’t imagine why Alex would be prepared to quit the circuit for his fiancée Alison Baker. The race that follows proves to be Alex’s last in more ways than one. Moments after the Ford driven by Derek Deacon, a brutish veteran competitor who’d already threatened to do whatever it took to win, nudged Alex’s car, it crashed and killed him. The other racers, close-knit to a fault, refuse to believe that Deacon bumped Alex on purpose. And the evidence supports them, because video footage of the crash has mysteriously disappeared from all the places most likely to have it, and Det. Len Brennan, of the Wiltshire Police, is obviously protecting Deacon. Aidy is determined to prove Deacon’s guilt, but when he and his only allies, his grandfather Steve and his mechanic Dylan, are threatened, beaten and arrested along with him, his detective work looks like a losing bet.
Wood (Terminated, 2010, etc.) kicks off this new series with a streamlined narrative, a spot of believable romance and some deftly introduced tidbits about the British racing circuit. Think of Dick Francis’ early thrillers, especially Nerve, but with a lot more horsepower.
