Not
the recent visit to Abids (22 July 2018), but the visit before that (3 June
2018) … I got my first Ngaio Marsh
novel, Opening Night, on that day … I knew very little about the
author and I came home and read more about her on wikipedia (where else!). Ngaio Marsh was New Zealand born, but her
detective of 32 novels, Roderick Alleyn,
works for the London Police, all novels, except four are set in England. Roderick Alleyn is known as a ‘gentleman
detective.’ And Ngaio Marsh is known as
one of the four ‘queens of crime’ of the Golden Age of crime fiction, along
with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Margery Allingham. So, I gathered all this information about the
writer.
Next
was … and I knew this would happen soon … one hitherto unknown author’s book turns
out to be interesting and setting off a spark
… I wanted to see where I could get more Ngaio Marsh novels. Used copies were what I was looking for, not
new ones, so I went to secondhandbooksindia.com and I found these three lovely
old green and white penguin editions of Ngaio Marsh novels … all more than
fifty years old …
I
don’t know when I would finally read them, but it felt good having them in my
collection. One of these days, I’m going
to fill a backpack with around 50 novels, all unread detective novels of my
favourite authors, and go to Goa, find a reclining chair and a quiet beach, sit
under a tree, and read through the day.
Ah … well … hazaron khwahishein
and all that …
Anyway,
and since I was visiting the book site, I wanted to check if they had uploaded
anything new … I found a beautifully antique looking collection of Raymond
Chandler’s Philip Marlowe stories … Pearls are a Nuisance … the stories
in these are already available in another collection with me, but I did not
want to let this one go …
And
I also found a Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout, Gambit. I had found three Nero Wolfe novels during my
previous purchase at secondhandbooksindia.com in February this year, when I had
caught the Wolfe bug.
Now,
it is the Ngaio Marsh bug … and I found three Roderick Alleyne novels this
time. All this happened in early June.
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