Tarquin Hall – författare

Portly, perceptive, and spectacularly moustachioed, India’s finest private detective, Vish Puri, tackles his most difficult case to date, in Tarquin Hall’s delightful humorous whodunit series set in New Delhi.

For Vish Puri, India’s most private detective, the news that he has won the long-coveted International Detective of the Year award, to be presented in a glitzy ceremony in London, makes this the best day of his life.

But to his deep dismay, a senior bureaucrat from the Ministry of Finance gives him a secret mission he can’t refuse: to track down India’s most-wanted fugitive. Dr. Bhatt’s medicines caused the deaths of hundreds, and the billionaire fraudster—code named the Bombay Duck—fled for the United Kingdom before he could be arrested.

Puri is only spending a week in London. He has never set foot in the UK before. And most important of all, he has already promised his wife that he won’t do any work while they’re away.

There’s only one solution: lie, lie, lie.

Puri dives headfirst into the case, in between visiting all the tourist sites, aided and abetted by his formidable, meddling Mummy-ji, whom Puri definitely did not invite to join them. But can Puri hook the Bombay Duck and bring him to justice before the fugitive’s many enemies get to him first?

Packed with the sights, sounds, and flavors of both New Delhi and London, this is an irresistible listen for fans of Alexander McCall Smith, Harini Nagendra, and Jesse Sutanto from an author who divides his time between India and the United Kingdom.

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.

Early one morning, on the lawns of a grand boulevard in central Delhi, a group of professionals are attending their therapeutic Laughing Club when a 20-foot apparition of the Goddess Kali apppears, and strikes one of their number dead.The goddess disappears without trace, and soon news of the crime has all India agog. For the victim is celebrated sceptic and rationalist Dr Suresh Jha, enemy of all gurus and mystics, and he has been silenced in a manner calculated to unnerve even his most loyal supporters. As the media go into a frenzy, it becomes clear that the case goes to the heart of the battle between superstition and rationality in modern India. But the fact remains that a murder has been committed. And as it becomes clear that powerful forces are at play, one man is perfectly placed to investigate: the portly detective Vish Puri. In fact, the idea that he could resist getting involved in such a tantalizing murder is preposterous. There is as much chance of him going without his lunch.

Vish Puri is as fond of butter chicken as the next Punjabi. And when there''s plenty on offer at the Delhi Durbar hotel where he''s attending an India Premier League cricket match dinner, he''s the first to tuck in. Irfan Khan, father of Pakistani star cricketer Kamran Khan, can''t resist either. But the creamy dish proves his undoing. After a few mouthfuls, he collapses on the floor, dead.Clearly this isn''t a case of Delhi Belly.But who amongst the Bollywood stars, politicians, bureaucrats and industrialists poisoned Khan is a mystery. And with the capital''s police chief proving as incompetent as ever, it falls to Most Private Investigators to find out the truth.Puri is soon able to link Khan to a bald bookie called Full Moon and all the clues point to the involvement of a gambling syndicate that controls the illegal X billion dollars betting industry.The answers seem to lie in Surat, the diamond cutting and polishing capital of the world (where Puri''s chief undercover operative Tubelight meets his match) and across the border in Pakistan, Puri''s nemesis, the one country where he has sworn never to set foot.Or do they? A certain determined, grey-haired lady with a unique insight into the murder believes that the portly detective is barking up ''a wrong tree.''Is Mummy-ji right?Is there more to the murder than meets the eye? And why, to make life even more complicated for Vish Puri, has someone tried to steal the longest moustache in the world - from right under the nose of its owner? Literally.

The wonderful fourth outing for Delhi detective Vish Puri (''the Indian Hercule Poirot'' Financial Times).''These books are little gems. They are beautifully written, amusing, and intensely readable.'' - Alexander McCall SmithWhen Ram and Tulsi fall in love, the young woman’s parents are dead set against the union. She’s from a high-caste family; he’s an Untouchable, from the lowest strata of Indian society. Young Tulsi’s father locks her up and promises to hunt down the “loverboy dog.” Fortunately, India’s Love Commandos, a group of volunteers dedicated to helping mixed-caste couples, come to the rescue. But just after they liberate Tulsi, Ram is mysteriously snatched from his hiding place.The task of finding him falls to India’s “Most Private Investigator”. Unfortunately, Vish Puri is not having a good month. He’s failed to recover a cache of stolen jewels. His wallet has been stolen and he’s having to rely on his infuriating Mummy-ji to get it back. And to top it all, his archrival, suave investigator Hari Kumar, is also trying to locate Ram. To reunite the star-crossed lovers, Puri and his team of operatives must infiltrate Ram’s village and navigate the caste politics shaped by millennia-old prejudices.