source -
www.straitstimes.com
NEW YORK - THE answer to whether Harry Potter lives or dies lies in a stack of sealed boxes, shrouded as if hidden beneath an invisibility cloak.
Barnes & Noble, the world's largest book retailer, has started taking delivery of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, at a warehouse somewhere in the north-eastern United States.
With its ending wrapped in secrecy and high security surrounding its distribution, the book will go on sale around the world at midnight on Friday.
Taking care not to break its contract with Potter's US publisher Scholastic Corp, Barnes & Noble gave reporters a tour of its distribution centre - but asked them to keep the location secret.
'We have had security all around the building, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,' Barnes & Noble Chief Executive Steve Riggio said.
In Britain, trucks carrying books from warehouses to shops will be fitted with satellite tracking systems to ensure they stick to assigned routes, while pallets of books have been fitted with alarms in an operation estimated to cost US$20 million (S$30 million). British publisher Bloomsbury would not comment.
Barnes & Noble would not even say when it started taking delivery of the books or when they would be sent to more than 700 stores across America.
Hundreds of white boxes destined for retail stores were emblazoned in red with the book's title and strict instructions 'Do not open before July 21, 2007'.
Fans are desperate to know whether the teen-age wizard Potter lives or dies after author J.K. Rowling revealed in June last year that she would kill off at least two characters in book seven, and that a third got a reprieve.
At the Barnes & Noble warehouse, copies reserved for customers who ordered online sat temptingly on pallets during Monday's tour, unwrapped and out of their boxes.
'We're processing so many books there isn't time to open the book,' Mr Riggio said. 'So we're very, very confident there will be no leak.'
At the North-east warehouse, copies had about as much chance of escaping as a prisoner at Azkaban.
'We have done this before. We're quite good at it and we expect that the book will remain under wraps until midnight Friday night,' Mr Riggio said.
Two security guards patrolled the small enclosed area where the books were being repacked, keeping a watchful eye on workers and checking trolleys of rubbish for hidden copies.
'It's like a major logistics operation,' Mr Riggio said. 'The amazing thing we will see in our stores is that kids will buy the book and they'll leave the cash register and they will open it immediately and start reading it.'
Personal request
Author J.K. Rowling has requested that bookstores in more than 200 countries where the Potter book will go on sale be given posters of four-year-old Madeleine McCann who has not been seen since she went missing from her family's holiday apartment in a Portuguese resort on May 3.
'I fervently hope that posters displayed prominently in shops all over the world when the new book comes out will help find Madeleine McCann and will help raise the profile of the many other missing children in different countries,' said the author. -- REUTERS, AFP
------
they are really serious about this. with trucks installed with satellite system and security guards patrolling the place. i doubt there will be a leakage of the book before 21st july.
meanwhile.
I CANT WAIT.
Potter book under guard at secret US warehouse 
Linear Mode
