I Guess This is Good...

This morning, my wife and I went to a church 'Jumble Sale,' kind of an indoor yard sale, and then to a resale shop in Harrow.  As you'd expect, whenever we go to ay of these places, I gravitate immediately to the books.  There are certain books I always see at these things - books by James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Sidney Sheldon, for example, plus Harlequin Romances.  Almost always though, there will be a book I want, that I didn't really expect to see.  Today there were two.  A book of short stories from the Vinyl Cafe - a collection from the story exchange part of the show, and a book by P.C. Doherty.

Like me, Doherty is a High School principal, almost certainly retired now.  Unlike me, he's written dozens of books in a number of different series - all historical mysteries.  My  favourite series is the Hugh Corbrett series - wonderful medieval mysteries.   They are the only books that, upon picking up, I read the last page before buying.  Once, a number of years ago, I bought a Hugh Corbrett mystery, only to find out that he died at the end!  Shot by a crossbow!

I was in a funk for weeks!  I liked Hugh Corbrett a lot!  And even though, if he were a real character, he would have been dead for eight hundred years or so by now, maybe more, I expected him to die a well deserved death in bed at eighty-something.  Not being hit by an arrow from a crossbow!  My guess was that Doherty was either tired of writing the Corbrett books and wanted to end them, or he wanted to receive a bunch of fan mail begging for Corbrett to return.

Anyway, a couple years later, a new book came out in the Hugh Corbrett series.  He hadn't died, and had been nursed back to health so he could catch another ne-er do well.  Because I usually pick up Corbrett mysteries at re-sale shops and yard sales and libraries, I don't always know if I've read them before. (I really don't mind.  I enjoy reading them a second time.)  I just don't want to read about Corbrett getting killed again.

I hadn't intended to tell you all that.  I really wanted to tell you that, in addition to looking for a book I wasn't expecting to find, I've also started to look for my book when I go into one of those places.  I look for my favourite writers, as always, but I also take a look in the 'G' section, and the humour section, for a copy of The Principal Chronicles.

I don't know yet if it will make me happy or sad to find it.  I don't know yet if I'll buy it, or if, as I often do, suggest to a patron I don't know that this would be a good book to pick up.  I do that for several books if I find them in a resale shop.  "What sort of book are you looking for?  Oh!  Have you read this one yet?  It's great!"  I also don't know yet if I'll fess up and tell the person that I wrote it.  Maybe I'll just look to see if it's signed and then ask the kid working at the till if I can sign it before putting it back on the shelf.  "Gee Sir, I don't know.  I mean, it's not your book anymore..."

In any case.  I didn't find a copy of The Principal Chronicles.  Maybe next time.