Redbery Books

Description

Meet Vish Puri, India's most private investigator. Portly, persistent, and unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined swath through modern India's swindlers, cheats, and murderers.

In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centers and malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri's main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties and family priests.

But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri's resources to investigate. How will he trace the fate of the girl, known only as Mary, in a population of more than one billion? Who is taking potshots at him and his prize chili plants? And why is his widowed "Mummy-ji" attempting to play sleuth when everyone knows mummies are not detectives?

With his team of undercover operatives -- Tubelight, Flush, and Facecream -- Puri ingeniously combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than two thousand years ago -- long before "that Johnny-come-lately" Sherlock Holmes donned his deerstalker.

The search for Mary takes him to the desert oasis of Jaipur and the remote mines of Jharkhand. From Puri's well-heeled Gymkhana Club to the slums where the servant classes live, his adventures reveal modern India in all its seething complexity.

About the Author

Tarquin Hall is a British author and journalist who has lived and worked throughout South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.  He is the author of The Case of the Missing Servant, dozens of articles, and three works of non-fiction, including the highly acclaimed Salaam Brick Lane, an account of a year spent above a Bangladeshi sweat shop in London's notorious East End. He is married to Indian-born journalist, Anu Anand.  They divide their time between London and Delhi.

Praise for The Case of the Missing Servant: From the Files of Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator…

"Vish Puri is the most original detective in years. Tarquin Hall has captured India in a way few Western writers have managed since Kipling. The country's humor, commotion, and vibrancy bursts from every page, exposing its vast, labyrinthine underbelly. Scintillating!" -- Tahir Shah, author of The Caliph's House

"Tubby, ingenious and hilarious, Delhi's most trusted PI, Vish Puri, is not easily forgotten. Properly disdainful of unoriginal crime-busters like Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, his unique methods of detection deserve to be widely known and feted." -- David Davidar, author of The Solitude of Emperors

"India, captured in all its pungent, vivid glory, fascinates almost as much as the crime itself."-- Entertainment Weekly

"A lively and quick-paced series debut."-- Kirkus (starred review)

"Hall turns to fiction with the debut of what promises to be an outstanding series....An excellent, delightfully humorous mystery with an unforgettable cast of characters, The Case of the Missing Servant immediately joins the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency as representing the best in international cozies."-- Booklist (starred review)

"[Hall] captures his second country with grace and humor and creates a protagonist able to put more cases in his "conclusively solved" cabinet. An entertaining start (complete with expletives-included glossary) to a promising series."-- Library Journal (starred review)