The Case of the Missing Servant
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  • Published: 4 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446461266
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 25 min
  • Narrator: Sam Dastor
  • RRP: $19.99

The Case of the Missing Servant

Formats & editions
EBook
2 Aug 2010
Audiobook
4 Feb 2011
Paperback
2 Aug 2010
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Acclaimed writer Tarquin Hall makes his fiction debut with an Indian detective story

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

In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centres 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 pot shots at him and his prize chilli 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 his well-heeled Gymkhana Club to the slums where the servant classes live, Puri's adventures reveal modern India in all its seething complexity.
  • Published: 4 February 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446461266
  • Imprint: RH AudioGo
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 25 min
  • Narrator: Sam Dastor
  • RRP: $19.99
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About the author

Tarquin Hall

Tarquin Hall is a writer and journalist who has lived and worked in much of South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the US. He is the author of several non-fiction works, including Mercenaries, Missionaries and Misfits: Adventures of an Under-Age Journalist; To the Elephant Graveyard; and Salaam Brick Lane: A Year in the New East End, and has contributed to The Times, Observer, Telegraph, and New Statesman. He is also the author of the Vish Puri detective stories, including The Case of the Missing Servant and The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing. He first went to India in the mid-1990s where he met his wife, journalist Anu Anand. They live in Dehli with their two children.

Also by Tarquin Hall

The Case of the Love Commandos
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken
The Case of the Man who Died Laughing
See all

Praise for The Case of the Missing Servant

The most original detective in years. Picture Hercule Poirot with an Indian accent, eating chili pakoras and riding in an auto rickshaw. Tarquin Hall has captured India in a way few Western writers have managed since Kipling. India's humor, commotion and vibrancy bursts from every page, exposing its vast, labyrinthine underbelly. Scintillating!

Tahir Shah, author of THE CALIPH'S HOUSE

A brilliantly written humorous tale that vividly captures the sounds, smells and foibles of modern India

Ayub Khan Din, writer of East is East

Lively and quick-paced ... What Cara Black does for Paris, Hall achieves for India

Kirkus

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

An amusing, timely whodunit... Hall has woven an impressive knowledge of India into a tautly constructed novel that is a highly readable introduction to the country for newcomers

Guardian

If Mma Ramotswe is an African Marple, Puri is an Indian Poirot: an opinionated Punjabi with an ego as great as his girth and a passion for British tailoring, malt whisky and fiery chillies... Hall combines an insider's insight with the eclectic eye of a good foreign correspondent

Financial Times

Readers may detect a calculated attempt to charm them, and are advised to yield quickly

Daily Telegraph

Pour yourself a cup of tea and pull up a comfy chair. This is one of those novels that uses the "new" India as a kind of Ealing comedy backdrop... Great fun - a seething slice of the sub-continent

The Times

A suspenseful girpping plot, a heavy air of mystery and lots of action woven together with thriller moments... A must read

Asian Age

Hall has a fine grasp of the nuances of north Indian life and lingo, as well as an in-depth knowledge in a wide range of subjects... I look forward eagerly to the next Vish Puri book

India Today