Still on the crime fiction trail - 2nd haul @ Best Books Sale - Part 2

So, I walked around looking at the books on the shelves and books arranged on the floor hoping to see a book or books that would put a kind of closure to my second visit to the books sale…and among the books arranged on the floor I happened to see the spine of a biggish book with ‘Ian Rankin’ on it…I was not too sure initially because Rankin’s books are usually of the paperback size and then picked it up tentatively…the book surprised me…it was the most unexpected book that I hoped to find…and I didn’t know it existed…this was Ian Rankin – The Complete Short Stories, comprising two of his short story collections A Good Hanging and Beggars Banquet plus Atonement – A brand new Rebus story … was this book going to signal the end of my quest this time? Should I quit and leave while the going was good? This book provided that slight rush and I wanted to linger a bit more…



That week, I had read Jon Stock’s column in The Week where had written about John Le Carre, the espionage novelist (?) and mentioned the film version of a novel written by Le Carre and another novel by Le Carre praised by Graham Greene as the greatest spy novel ever written…I couldn’t remember their names at the Sale, but still thought I’d take a look and see if the titles gave off clues…I went over to the shelves near the door where Le Carre books were stacked and went through the titles…no clues…then I started reading the blurbs…I wanted to buy at least one Le Carre novel…I zeroed in on Smiley’s People and then temptation overtook me and I selected Our Game too…but I knew these were not the novels that Jon Stock had written about…and then from the nearby shelf I thought I saw Rankins beckoning me…I once again succumbed and went over but didn’t know which one to pick up, because I was not sure which ones I had purchased recently…I chided myself for not preparing well before coming to the sale and took a chance and picked up Strip Jack hoping that this was not already in my collection…I knew my wallet would become considerably lighter and there is a higher authority who would wish to know where these books came from…but at that moment I was after my fix and didn’t think too much…I paid for these books and came home with the bundle…

The first thing I did was to check my Rankin collection…Strip Jack was not in that collection…relief…I then searched for The Week and read Jon Stock’s column again…alas…the Le Carre novels he mentions are Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold … well, something to look forward to in the next Sale…

In the meanwhile, I finished reading three Parker-Spenser novels…Early Autumn, Valediction, and A Catskill Eagle…Spenser is so addictive…