Tarquin Hall

Puri's detective skills are old-fashioned in a Sherlock Holmesian way and out of sync with modern Delhi, but they work. Here Puri and his team have two investigations: the background of a man willing to wed a woman her father considers unmarriageable, and the disappearance of a servant to a prominent Punjabi lawyer.

The Case of the Missing Servant

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

The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

Murder is no laughing matter. Yet a prominent Indian scientist dies in a fit of giggles when a Hindu goddess appears from a mist and plunges a sword into his chest. The only one laughing now is the main suspect, a powerful guru named Maharaj Swami, who seems to have done away with his most vocal critic. Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator, master of disguise and lover of all things fried and spicy, doesn’t believe the murder is a supernatural occurrence, and proving who really killed Dr. Suresh Jha will require all the detective’s earthly faculties. To get at the truth, he and his team of undercover operatives—Facecream, Tubelight, and Flush—travel from the slum where India’s hereditary magicians must be persuaded to reveal their secrets to the holy city of Haridwar on the Ganges. How did the murder weapon miraculously crumble into ash? Will Maharaj Swami have the last laugh? And perhaps more important, why is Puri’s wife, Rumpi, chasing petty criminals with his Mummy-ji when she should be at home making his rotis? Stopping only to indulge his ample Punjabi appetite, Puri uncovers a web of spirituality, science, and sin unique in the annals of crime.

From the Files of Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

Coming to the rescue of Ram and Tulsi, only to have Ram disappear, India's Love Commandos, a real-life group of volunteers dedicated to helping mixed-caste couples, asks Vish Puri, India's Most Private Investigator, to help them reunite the star-crossed lovers.

From the Files of Vish Puri, India's Most Private Investigator

The Case of the Love Commandos

Vish Puri discovers that his mother is looking into an unsolved cold case of his late father's - the disappearance of a young housewife named Riya Kaur. Mummy-ji's found a new witness who believes she's the reincarnation of the missing woman. Forced into an alliance with his mother, Puri must delve into Delhi's past in order to unlock the truth.

The Case of the Reincarnated Client

Case of the Missing Servant

After ten years living abroad, Tarquin Hall wanted to return to his native London. Lured by his nostalgia for a leafy suburban childhood spent in south-west London, he returned with his Indian-born, American fiance in tow. But, priced out of the housing market, they found themselves living not in a townhouse, oozing Victorian charm, but in a squalid attic above a Bangladeshi sweatshop on London's Brick Lane. A grimy skylight provided the only window on their new world: a filthy, noisy street where drug dealers and prostitutes peddled their wares and tramps urinated on the pavements. At night, traffic lights lit up the ceiling and police sirens wailed into the early hours. Yet, as Hall got to know Brick Lane, he discovered beneath its unlovely surface an inner world where immigrants and asylum seekers struggle to better themselves and dream of escape. Salaam Brick Lane is a journey of discovery by an outsider in his own native city. It offers an explicit glimpse of the underbelly of London's most infamous quarter, the real-life world of Monica Ali's bestselling novel.

A Year in the New East End

Salaam Brick Lane

Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

"Hilarious ... Hall’s plot is filled with engaging twists. Vish is a wonderfully realized character ... You can dive in anywhere in this series and be rewarded with a rich experience" – Booklist Starred Review A client claiming she was murdered in a past life is a novel dilemma even for Vish Puri, India's Most Private Investigator. When a young woman comes forward claiming to be the reincarnation of Riya Kaur, a wife and mother who vanished during the bloody 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Puri is dismissive. He's busy enough dealing with an irate matrimonial client whose daughter is complaining about her groom’s thunderous snoring. Puri's indomitable Mummy-ji however is adamant the client is genuine. How else could she so accurately describe under hypnosis Riya Kaur's life and final hours? Driven by a sense of duty - the original case was his late father’s - Puri manages to acquire the police file only to find that someone powerful has orchestrated a cover-up. Forced into an alliance with his mother that tests his beliefs and high blood pressure as never before, it’s only by delving into the past the help of his reincarnated client that Puri can hope to unlock the truth.

Vish Puri ja nauruun kuolleen miehen tapaus

Adventures of an Under-age Journalist

Mercenaries, Missionaries and Misfits

The Delhi Detective's Handbook

Evidence

On India's North-East frontier a killer elephant is reported to be on the rampage. Local authorities call in one of India's last licensed elephant killers. Reading about the ensuing hunt in a Delhi newspaper, Tarquin Hall flies to Assam to investigate, convinced that no elephant could be guilty of murdering farmers. However as he discovers that the country's elephants have lost their habitat and are at war with the local population, he comes to understand that though a victim of human cruelty, the cunning man-killer is not innocent either. Stalking Assam's paddy fields, he has murdered dozens of farmers, crushing their bodies and mutilating them. A wonderful adventure story, To the Elephant Graveyard is also a telling fable of man's failure to understand and respect his environment and of nature fighting back.

To the Elephant Graveyard

A sampler from each title in Hall’s fun, exotic, mystery series, about which Andrew McCall Smith says, “These books are little gems. They are beautifully written, amusing, and intensely readable.” An honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant in The Case of the Missing Servant; the Hindu goddess Kali comes down to earth and murders a laughing scientist in The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing; and the father of the most prominent cricket player in India dies at a feast in The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken. In each of these unique, humorous mysteries, the beloved Most Private Investigator, Vish Puri, sets out to get to the bottom of these witty whodunits, with many a hiccup along the way.

Vish Puri E-Sampler

Vish Puri & Kadonneen palvelijattaren tapaus

The delightful, amusing, and deeply mysterious second novel to feature Vish Puri, a man after Hercule Poirot's heart, in a series that has already won diehard fans on three continents. The bizarre murder of an Indian scientist in public by the goddess Kali is no laughing matter. Yet Dr. Suresh Jha, best known for unmasking fraudulent swamis and godmen, dies in a fit of giggles at his morning yoga class when the hideous deity appears from the mist and plunges a sword into his chest. The case is a first in the "annals of crime" according to Vish Puri, head of Delhi's Most Private Investigators. To get at the truth, Puri and his team of unstoppable undercover operatives must travel from Delhi's Shadipur slum, home of India's ancestral magicians, to the holy city of Haridwar on the Ganges — entering a world in which illusion and the supernatural are virtually indistinguishable.

Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator

“Introduces us to the darker side of the Asian elephant. It is more of a thriller than a straightforward travel book . . . insightful and sensitive.” —Literary Review On India’s northeast frontier, a killer elephant is on the rampage, stalking Assam’s paddy fields and murdering dozens of farmers. Local forestry officials, powerless to stop the elephant, call in one of India’s last licensed elephant hunters and issue a warrant for the rogue’s destruction. Reading about the ensuing hunt in a Delhi newspaper, journalist Tarquin Hall flies to Assam to investigate. To the Elephant Graveyard is the compelling account of the search for a killer elephant in the northeast corner of India, and a vivid portrait of the Khasi tribe, who live intimately with the elephants. Though it seems a world of peaceful coexistence between man and beast, Hall begins to see that the elephants are suffering, having lost their natural habitat to the destruction of the forests and modernization. Hungry, confused, and with little forest left to hide in, herds of elephants are slowly adapting to domestication, but many are resolute and furious. Often spellbinding with excitement, like “a page-turning detective tale” (Publishers Weekly), To the Elephant Graveyard is also intimate and moving, as Hall magnificently takes us on a journey to a place whose ancient ways are fast disappearing with the ever-shrinking forest. “Hall is to be congratulated on writing a book that promises humor and adventure, and delivers both.” —The Spectator “Travel writing that wonderfully hits on all cylinders.” —Booklist “A wonderful book that should become a classic.” —Daily Mail

Tarquin Hall

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