THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Three months after his death, an acquaintance of Rainbow Books CEO N. Rajesh Kumar met his widow, Sandhyadevi, and offered to cart away books worth Rs 45 lakh kept in the godown of the publishing house for Rs 13.26 lakh. For Sandhyadevi, too debt-ridden to think of sustaining operations and whose earlier attempt to sell the books to a prominent publisher had met with humiliation, this seemed like divine intervention.

The acquaintance, Joshy John, who claimed to be the proprietor of Present Books, agreed to pay the money in five instalments over as many years. He gave her five blank cheques, drawn in favour of Union Bank of India, Nilambur branch.

It has been three years since then, but Sandhyadevi has not received a single rupee. Strangely, as a random check with retailers across the state had revealed, Joshy John has not sold even a single book he had purchased from Sandhyadevi.

The man, too, seems to have vanished. There was no such person residing in Ugrapuram in Malappuram, the address he had given in the sale deed. What’s more, there was no Present Books in the address Mr John had given (Edavannappara Road, Areecode, Malappuram). The Union Bank account too has been inactive since 2012, the year Mr John disappeared with the books.

“I had got him on the phone a couple of times in the first year. He said he was finding it difficult to sell the books,” Sandhyadevi said. Later when she called on the same number, it was picked up by a person in Himachal Pradesh. Then, every time she called, it went unpicked. It was not as if Mr John was saddled with non-saleable books.

In his possession were the works of some of the most popular writers: O. N. V. Kurup, Paul Zachariah, Benyamin, Vishnu Narayanan Namboodiri, Ayyappan, D. Vinayachandran, K. R. Meera, Renji Panicker, Narendra Prasad and Nedumudi Venu. Kanneerum Kinavum, the hugely popular autobiography of V. T. Bhattathirippad, was part of the booty, besides S. Guptan Nair’s highly feted autobiography, Manasmasmarami.