Trump book comes and promptly goes

There was fire and fury in Palmerston North – but blink and you might have missed it.

A trawl of city bookshops on Friday, which prompted one staffer to say she’d be fired if she talked to the media, failed to unearth one copy of Fire and Fury, the supposed inside story of Donald Trump’s chaotic White House regime a year into the American presidency.

The story seemed to be that those few copies that did turn up in town were snaffled in pre-orders, leaving shelves and panting customers bereft until the next lot landed.

And quite when that will be and in what quantity seems to be as unclear as the workings of the Trump mind.

Whitcoulls book buyer Joan Mckenzie said from Auckland their first copies last week sold out in a day around the country but a second printing meant more were on the way.

Whitcoulls Broadway in Palmerston North had a sold-out sign on its public counter.

A Whitcoulls Plaza source said they had six copies, which went in a morning, and 60 more were expected on January 25.

A Paper Plus in The Square source said they’d had ‘‘quite a few inquiries’’ about the book, but referred further questions to the company support office, where the relevant person was on holiday.

Bruce Mckenzie, owner of Bruce Mckenzie Booksellers in George St, said he didn’t want to talk numbers.

But all the copies of Fire and Fury he had earlier this week went to customers who had pre-ordered, so none made the shelves.

He hoped the next lot would arrive in store early next week.

Mckenzie said, as well as media saturation, he put the high demand for the book down to the ‘‘exceptional’’ fact that it was published after its subject had been in office for only a year.

‘‘Usually, these things come out after it is all over for someone,’’ he said.