Found the
first in the Martin Beck series I am collecting … I had to pay quite a sum for
a used book, but I had no choice and moreover, I waited long enough … so, Roseanna,
as the first in the series, took its place at the head of the set … and for
some reason the dispatch and delivery was quite convoluted … I bought it from a
used books seller on Amazon called ‘dealstar’ and for some reason ‘dealstar’
wouldn’t ship to the regular address that I have on Amazon, though I have been
receiving books and stuff from Amazon to this address for some years now … I
had to think of an alternative and gave my college address and those strange
people accepted that address … my college is in Aushapur village, beyond Ghatkesar,
on the outskirts of Hyderabad … and it is on the national highway … there are
only small villages around it … these people must be really weird … but after
placing the order, I started worrying … would the book reach the address? and one day all of a sudden I receive a
message from Bluedart saying that a package would be delivered today … I
wondered which package and was worried … the delivery date for the book was
still a long way away … I checked the number on the message and cross checked
it with the number in my mailbox and they matched … I was confused … and it was
a Sunday … I called the Admin Officer to find out if the security guys would be
at the college premises … and the courier chap spoke to me in the afternoon to
find out where my college is located … I didn’t get any ‘delivered’ message … I
was slightly disturbed … I checked the Bluedart website, used the number on the
message and discovered that the book had been delivered! Monday was a holiday and I could get my book
only on Tuesday … and when I saw the Bluedart pick-up point address, I couldn’t
help laughing … it was in Habsiguda, barely half a kilometre from my house
...
Why do I
keep rambling like this about unrelated things … anyway, force of habit … can’t
help it … so, I finally got Roseanna … I had already read the
novel and it was an intriguing experience … a dead-body is found and it takes
some days to discover that the woman was an American … imagine the legwork and
correspondence and telephone conversations … days without any lead …
investigation plodding along … frustrated detectives … and finally some hope …
a slender lead … and then the solution … if you want to read ‘real’ police
procedural novels, Martin Beck is the series …
Two more
novels and my Martin Beck set would be complete … I browsed around and found
them on the Amazon UK site … they were used books, and the prices were just £
0.01 each … but the postage and packaging comes to £ 14.02 … he he … I still
have these books in the shopping cart … let’s see … only two more … and my set would look like this ...
No comments:
Post a Comment