The Tenth Car

When a Bristol detective-turned-PI, Omus Jones, is hired to sort out an eighteen-million-pound insurance claim, he stumbles onto a secret sealed inside a Cornish carriage house: a legendary pre-war French “toile Noire” that should not exist. The discovery catapults Omus into a world where expertise is currency and authority can be forged — just like cars and documents.

As a revered Parisian authenticator reverses himself, a hedge-fund owner wavers between victim and suspect, and a century of Penrose family secrets surfaces in a leather file, Omus and DS Zennor Quince trace a chain of desire, deception, and provenance across Cornwall, London, and Paris.

To solve the case before a lawsuit crushes his client — and before the wrong people close ranks — Omus must answer four questions he’s asked his whole career: who made it, who forged it, why the expert changed his mind, and, most dangerous of all, who really benefits.