As I know one half of the writing duo R J Bailey very well, I got a sneak preview of the next book (the first one in the series, Safe From Harm, is out soon) and it features a starring role for the same make of car that Albert Camus died in, although the author wasn’t driving the Facel Vega at the time, it was his publisher behind the wheel. The Facel Vega was notoriously tricky to handle – beautiful to look at, with elegant French-American styling, coupled with big, brutal US-sourced engines but not always the brakes to match.   The authors unearthed the original owner’s manual, which gives a clue as to its unpredictability:.

“Driving your Facel Vega. At high speed drivers are warned to be careful to hold the steering wheel with both hands except when shifting gears; to keep as close as possible to the centre of the road; not to overtake on the brow of a hill; to reduce speed over the brow of a hill as a car might have stopped on the far side; not to look at anything else but the road; not to change the radio programme; not to smoke”

Thank God they didn’t have sat navs and iPhones to distract the unwary driver back then. The novel featuring the Facel Vega (“The Hurting Kind”) will be out at the end of this year. Meanwhile, Safe From Harm  (below) is out in paperback from Simon & Schuster this Thursday (Jan 12).

You can read about the role of cars in that book in my interview with half of the team here:

http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/showarticle/4767