My general Abids schedule is usually once
a month, but after my previous trip (on the 6th) where I got those
old crime thrillers, and posted their cover pictures, KBS Krishna responded
enthusiastically and imparted some more knowledge about writers of that period
… he mentioned some more names and wondered if the Sunday pavements of Abids
would have their titles … I was ready to go the next Sunday … Shruti appeared a
bit worried … you went last Sunday, no … your visit is usually once a month …
and all that … I sort of ducked those bouncers, but finally decided not to go …
she also said, anyway, next Sunday we won’t be there in Hyderabad, you can go …
So, next Sunday came and off I went to
Abids … I got down near the same pavement stall from where I got those ‘sensational’
crime thrillers to see if any books from two weeks back were still left unsold …
oh yes, some of them were still there … I was slightly better acquainted with
the 50s-60s-70s crime fiction scene now … I saw another Mike Shayne mystery
(Brett Halliday), The Corpse Came Calling … I had bought a Mike Shayne mystery during my previous visit and had no hesitation in picking this up ...
And then I saw two books by Richard S. Prather …
I picked both and read the blurbs and discovered that this writer had his own
private eye called Shell Scott and these two books featured him … one of the books
was a novel, Pattern for Panic (1954), and the other was a collection of
short stories Shell Scott’s Seven Slaughters (1961) …
The world wide web helped me gain some more information about Prather and his detective … Prather wrote ‘plentifully’ between
1950 and 1975, publishing around 40 Shell Scott books (novels and short story
collections) … from what I read, Shell Scott is a different sort of detective …
he is an ex-marine, sports a ‘bristly white-blonde buzz cut,’ no fedora or
trench-coat, but Hawaiian shirts and ‘snazzy teal blue suits’ … and ‘remarkably
little angst’ … he is, no doubt, tough, but with a touch of goofiness … the
hedonism is very much there … now I am glad I got those two books, gives me
some idea about the progression of the detective genre … the early ones and the
later ones and so on …
After this purchase, I joined Vinod,
Srikanth, and Umashankar at the Irani … there was a discussion on two recently
released supposed-to-be-blockbusters Hindi movies … and also Telugu movies …
the Hyderabad Book Fair had started and Vinod had already visited it twice, and
maybe Umashankar too had … then there was this discussion on what books they
saw and what they bought … and then, we started our journey …
Nothing much for a long time … then
Umashankar found a slim book of aphorisms on love … and spent the browsing time
reading aloud witty quotes and one-liners from the book … very enjoyable
actually … and I found a book which I thought Mamoon might like … Your
First Keyboard Method … I had purchased a keyboard looong back and
Mamoon sometimes plays with the keys, making her own music … maybe, just maybe,
Mamoon might get interested in ‘learning’ how to ‘actually’ play the keyboard …
I ‘scanned’ and ‘skimmed’ the book and felt that the instructions and
illustrations were simple enough …
Then we went down the road, eyes scanning
the pavements on both sides … Vinod pointed out Elmore Leonard’s Bandits
… I was not sure whether I already had a copy … Vinod said take it, it is a
nice copy … he is a great believer in picking up multiple copies of second-hand
books in good condition … makes good gifts for books-loving friends … I had
done so previously on two occasions and gave those books to my student … I am
glad I picked Bandits, because when I came home and checked, I didn’t have
one …
And then we went till the GPO … saw some
more books … came back to Bata galli and entered the shopping complex and
surprisingly, many permanent shops that were usually closed were open (possibly because Christmas and New Year are close … ) and as a result many Sunday bookstalls
were not … and from among the few stalls I saw this book … Perchance to Dream … this
is sequel to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep written by another
acclaimed crime fiction writer, Robert B. Parker … I had read Chandler’s The
Big Sleep and had read about Parker’s sequel to that, and I had also
seen the book at Abids earlier … and this time I picked it up … let’s see how
it is …
And that sort of brought the book-hunt to
a close that day … six books for Rs.80 … but Krishna, I couldn’t find any of
the books by those authors that you mentioned … I would continue my search
though and hope to have better luck during the next visits …
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