Monday, March 12, 2018

An unexpected and exciting bag of books from secondhandbooksindia dot com … Nero Wolfe and hardboiled masters …

That The Hindu Literary Review of 18th February 2018 has truly set off a chain of book buys.  Though this search on secondhandbooksindia started with Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, one search led to another author and yet another author I ended up with eight delectable novels. 

Though not always having stocks of books of my chosen authors, secondhandbooksindia has occasionally offered me some very good books.  I bought my first stack of John D. Macdonald novels from this seller, and also my first Simon Brett novels; and I also was lucky to land a most valuable author-signed copy of Ian Rankin’s The Impossible Dead.  Many a time have I visited this site and returned empty handed, but I continue to visit regularly.  I was rewarded this time … sumptuously …       

Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels became my latest target as I searched online for them.  Lots of books were available, but most of them were new and expensive and I didn’t want to buy a ‘new’ Nero Wolfe novel yet.  I searched for used copies on my usual used-books portals on amazon, but no luck.  In the meantime, to lower the tension, I read the ebook of the first in the series, Fer-de-Lance and got a feel of the characters and setting.  And thus, with all my usual avenues closed, I thought I’d try my luck at secondhandbooksindia. 

I actually found 4 Nero Wolfe novels on secondhandbooksindia!!  I wanted to cross check the titles with the Rex Stout bibliography for chronology, and saw that while The Golden Spiders, Three Men Out, and Some Buried Caesar were in the list, Silver Spire was absent.  I was a bit puzzled and checked the book details again.  It said Silver Spire was a Nero Wolfe novel, but the author was Robert Goldsborough!  A little bit of snooping revealed that Goldsborough continued the Nero Wolfe series after Stout’s death with the approval of the estate of Rex Stout and he wrote 12 Nero Wolfe novels.  Let me read the originals first, I thought, and then find my way to the ‘official pastiches.’  And so, I put The Golden Spiders, Three Men Out, and Some Buried Caesar in my shopping basket.  During this snooping, I was happy to discover that Three Men Out contained 3 Nero Wolfe short stories.




I was pleased with this little triumph.  And since I was there anyway, I thought let me do my customary search for books of my favourite authors.  I typed ‘macdonald’ to account for both Ross and John D.  There were the usual Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser and other non-Travis McGee novels of John D. MacDonald.  Chal, jaan-de bhai, I thought as I scrolled down and there was a link to page 2 … hmmm … going to page 2? … a rare occurrence on the macdonald page … I went to page 2 and found two Ross Macdonald novels listed there!!  uhooooo … this is great … and also one Travis McGee novel by John D. MacDonald, The Quick Red Fox, which I didn’t have … Ross Macdonald had written 4 novels before he started writing his iconic Lew Archer series, and he wrote these using his real name Kenneth MillarTrouble Follows Me is one of them … the other Ross Macdonald novel I got was Sleeping Beauty … I already have a copy of the novel, but I was going to get both of them, for it is not every day that you get a Ross Macdonald for 150 and odd rupees … and of course, in went John D. MacDonald’s The Quick Red Fox too … 



While all this surprise and happiness was going on, I realized I hadn’t checked the balance in my account on the site.  This site either gives you the option of using a cheque or internet banking or by depositing money in your cash basket on the site.  I prefer the cash basket mode, but my basket was empty.  I quickly put some money into my basket and it was activated almost immediately. 

The finding of Ross Macdonald novels had energized me.  I typed ‘chandler’ and what … there were two Chandlers that I didn’t have The Lady in the Lake and Playback … this is a golden hard-boiled run I am having I thought … I had 8 books, all of them desirable and welcome additions to my library … 



A Hammett would have rounded off the purchase nicely … there was one actually, but I had that title already … aah, well, maybe I should have put that too in the basket, after all I had a copy of Sleeping Beauty, and still bought this one here … 

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