Tarquin Hall

“Watch out Alexander McCall Smith!” claims the blurb. Watch out indeed, because Hall is not doing the genre any favors. Though I picked this up due to a favorable GR review, and found myself further intrigued by comparisons to the Inspector Singh series, I’d say Hall needs further practice before he’s ready for the big time.

I originally passed it to my mom, hoping to tease her into another series and perhaps, you know, broaden her horizons just a touch. She complained it was hard to show more get into to and that there were “a lot of words to look up.” She tends to be more of a stickler with wanting to understand things, so I figured that I’d give it a shot as a genre reader.

Right away, I empathized with her experience. In the first paragraph, Vish Puri is “devouring a dozen green chili pakoras* from a greasy takeout box.” That asterisk refers the reader to a glossary with over one-hundred-fifty words. Still, I tried my sci-fi skills. Not terrible. Hall usually has one vocabulary word or two per paragraph. But still, the one I tried made no sense: ‘press-wallah,’ defined as a ‘journalist.’ The sentence it is used in? “The family also relied on a part-time dishwasher, a sweeper, a gardener and the local press-wallah who had a stand under the neem tree down the street where he applied a heavy iron filled with hot charcoal to a dizzying assortment of garments, including silk saris, cotton salwars and denim jeans.”

So is Hall having us on?

Well, aside from that. Given the glossary is over 150 words, you can easily assume this isn’t your average mystery. And in fact, it is not. It is a slice of life tale that is told in a very meandering, wandering fashion. Thus, in the middle of a stakeout in the first chapter, Mr. Puri is recalling his latest letter to The Times of India, decrying the youth of today. I get it; Hall is trying for a chatty, accessible tone, except it isn’t accessible at all. Any forward momentum in the story is derailed with backstory. We can’t just refer to someone by nickname; no, Mr. Puri needs to think about all the other nicknames his crew has, his own nickname, and the reasons they all came about, and what his doctor’s thoughts were on his chubbiness at his latest visit. Again, this might be charming if you wanted a travelogue through semi-modern India. In a mystery? Not so much. Add in his penchant for dressing well (or at least, very Seville Row) and chubbiness, coupled with an outdated cultural view, and I wonder if we are supposed to be laughing at Mr. Puri.

I’ll note a couple of things. One, as I was recently reminded when reading a blog post from James Corey, if you wink too much at your protagonist, you risk not taking them seriously. Two, you want to write a mystery, you need some dramatic tension. Expecting your readers to frequently stop and look up words in a glossary is not how you maintain that tension.

All it took was that chapter and I concurred with the Mom. I also concurred with Richard’s last paragraph of his review where he notes “but for a mystery reader, it would be a horrible experience, and for a snootybootsy four-hankies-and-a-pistol reader it would be a horrible experience, and for the general what’s-new-this-week reader it would be a disorganized mess. If you’re in the mood for a curry, though, could do nicely. Just don’t go in with expectations too high.”

I never did go for curry. show less

Digital audiobook performed by Sam Dastor
3.5***

From the book jacket: 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 usty Delhi, 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 show more Puri’s resources to investigate.

My reactions:
This debut novel was just delightful! Puri is a marvelous character, and I want to follow the series just to get to know him better. But the supporting cast is also wonderful. From “Mummy-ji” (his mother, who insists on playing sleuth when “everyone” knows mummies are not detectives), to his undercover operatives: Tubelight, Flush, and Facecream.

While the main storyline focuses on the missing Mary, there are other issues Puri and his team must deal with – WHO is taking potshots at Puri and his chili plants? As the team travels from the swanky Gymkhana Club to the slums of Dehli, and from a desert oasis to a distant mine, the reader gets a view of modern-day India that is colorfully vivid.

I’ll definitely read more from this author.

Sam Dastor does a very good job of narrating the audiobook. I love the accents he used for Puri, Mummy-ji and the other characters. show less

Author Tarquin Hall had not released a Vish Puri novel in five years, so I had given up hope. How thrilled I am to discover the release of No. 6 in the series featuring the rotund, self-admiring head of Most Private Investigators in New Delhi. In The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck, Puri’s ego is further inflated by a summons to receive the 2021 Private Detective of the Year by the International Private Detectives Ltd. in London. Puri’s wife Rumpi and his mother accompany him to show more England.

But while Puri’s there, an Indian bigwig insists that Puri partner with Scotland Yard to track down a fugitive pharmaceutical CEO. At the same time, Rumpi and Mummy-ji conduct their own investigation into an Indian ex-pat servant being cheated of her wages and benefits. Readers will adore both cases, each of which has plenty of surprises. But it’s Vish Puri’s Chav but clever nephew Jagat (better known as “Jags”) that steals every scene he’s in. This first-generation Londoner taking a gap year is trying to find himself — and, thanks to Puri, he might just have found his calling. Highly, highly recommended.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Severn House in exchange for an honest review. show less

First Line: Stripped down to his undergarments and tweed Sandown cap, Vish Puri stepped onto his wife's old set of bathroom weighing scales.

At his wife's insistence, Vish Puri attends a fancy dinner hosted by a new multi-million-dollar cricket league. Amusing himself by watching people come and go from the banquet room, he is right on the spot when the father of one of the players eats some of the butter chicken on his plate and dies, seconds later, of poison.

Asked to investigate, Vish finds show more the case leading into the heart of illegal gambling...and deep into a country Vish loathes: Pakistan. During the 1947 Partition of India, several of Puri's family members were massacred in Pakistan, and he has vowed to never set foot on its soil. But in order to solve the case, he must go. What he doesn't realize is that his own mother, his beloved Mummy-ji, has many of the answers he needs.

Once again, Tarquin Hall led me straight to the heart of modern-day India-- the sights, the smells, the mindset of a fascinating country. He also taught me a great many things about the 1947 Partition of India of which I was not aware. (Who says you can't learn anything by reading mysteries?) In the book, Vish Puri is conducting two investigations: one involving illegal gambling and cricket, the other a mysterious (and often hilarious) case of someone who's going around shaving off the mustaches of men who hold records for the hairy appendages in India's own version of the Guinness Book of Records.

The levity of the mustache case was needed because many of the details of the other case were heartbreaking. Was I surprised when Mummy-ji turned out to be such a good investigator in this book? Not at all, but then I've had the pleasure of reading the previous two books in the series-- something I hope all of you experience as well. Not because you need to read them in order to make sense of this latest book, but because they are so informative-- and so much fun.

Hall does a marvelous job with the dialogue, bringing the cadence of speech into play without making it confusing. And the descriptions of the food? Mouthwatering! My husband and I now eat an Indian meal at least once a month simply due to Hall's books. For those readers who want to understand more and experience more of modern-day India, Hall includes a glossary and recipes in the back, and although I normally bypass things like this in other books, I don't when it comes to a Vish Puri book.

I can't recommend this series highly enough for readers who enjoy good mysteries, good food, wonderful characters, and a touch of light-hearted fun amidst all the seriousness. You and your armchair are in for a treat when traveling to Vish Puri's India! show less