After finally finishing Valerie Grove's superb biography of John Mortimer, I embarked on a trawl of some of my favourite book depositories in Oxford to see if I could buy up second-hand copies of the writer's most amusing work — tales of barrister Horace Rumpole.
I discovered four or five of the old orange-spined Penguins on my own shelves but according to the bibliography in the Grove tome there were alarming gaps in my collection.
I tried Oxford Central Library where they sell off their ageing stock for 50p or £1 but had no luck, and it was the same story in the British Heart Foundation's well-run store in St Ebbe's.
In Arcadia in St Michael's Street there was a copy of Mortimer's Paradise Postponed novel for £1 but it was Rumpole I was looking for so I passed up the opportunity and alas, the next time I passed by, the bargain was gone.
I also drew a blank in further trawls at the Oxfam specialist bookshop in The Turl and three flights up in the splendid second-hand section at Blackwell's, where I was pleased to see a collection of old children's books.
My final destination of the week, the Gloucester Green market on a Thursday, did pay dividends.
I snapped up a copy of le Carré's The Constant Gardener for a pound and met a dealer who promised to dig out his entire Rumpole collection for me. Will he deliver?
Coincidentally one newspaper columnist I read this week revealed how he used to phone in sick from work to read his Rumpole books. I'm a real fan but that's taking devotion a bit too far.
Have you ever become addicted to a single author and religiously read through his or her entire collection? Please let me know.