OTHER
TITLES ?
For a
short time I thought there was a complete missing novel,
and this set me off on a Sherlock Holmes-like hunt for it.
The details were given in a book called "20th Century Crime
and Mystery Writers" edited by John Reilly and published in
1985 but sadly now out of print.
Christian Henriksson, who runs a web site called the
Big
Mystery Bibliography Page, came
to my help with details from this guide of which he has a
copy. It seemed initially that the elusive book, "The
Legacy" listed as having been published in 1982, might not
have been published in Britain. This seemed very unlikely
as all the other titles had been published here before
anywhere else. After a lot of enquiries to international
publishers, and with a little help from my friends, it
turned out that this 'missing' book was in fact "Windfall",
the official book for 1982.
In translation from language to language confusion must
have crept in. Arvet
- the
Swedish word translated for Windfall, also means a
Legacy
. In
English (not an easy language!) Windfall
can have
the split meaning of something blown on the wind - as in
the balloon theme of the story - and a large unexpected
inheritance - a legacy - which is also the key plot motif.
I guess that a Scandinavian reader somewhere must have "got
hold of the wrong end of the stick".
The
mystery is over now, however I do notice that many web
sites still list Legacy as a published title.