Customer Reviews

The Case of the Missing Servant: From the Files of Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator (A Vish Puri Mystery)

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3 star:		(15)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having traveled extensively in India, and having had a lifelong fascination with the subcontinent, I had high hopes for Tarquin Hall's "The Case of the Missing Servant." I expected this tale of Indian private investigator Vish Puri to evoke the sights, sounds and smells of India's teeming cities and dusty countryside. I expected it to offer the distinctive feel of the many religions and cultures that share the region. I even expected it to include mouth-watering descriptions of the distinctive spicy flavors of Indian food, ranked as one of the world's three greatest cuisines. I was not a bit disappointed. "The Case of the Missing Servant" does all of these things superbly. And, oh, by the way, there's a pretty good detective story in here as well.

Portly, pakora-munching, dapper-dressed Punjabi Vish Puri, called "Chubby" by his friends, would never be confused with Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. He's more of a Delhi-based cross between Hercule Poirot and Perry Mason. The founder and managing director of Most Private Investigators, Ltd., Puri has observational skills rivaling those of "that Johnny-come-lately Sherlock Holmes," a detailed knowledge of 2000-year-old Indian principles of detection, and wide-ranging contacts in Indian society. Usually his work involves screening prospective matrimonial partners for the "arranged" marriages still common in India. But this time, aided by his team of undercover operatives nicknamed Tubelight, Facecream, Door Stop, Flush and Handbrake, Puri takes on the case of a servant girl who has gone missing from the household of a well-to-do Jaipur barrister. A badly beaten body dumped beside a roadway is identified as that of the missing girl, and evidence points to the barrister as her murderer. Can Puri clear the man who insists he's innocent? As he sifts through clues and chases tantalizing leads, Puri dodges bullets himself while never missing a meal.

If you enjoy fast-paced, lucid, satisfying and understandable mysteries, you definitely should read "The Case of the Missing Servant." Don't be put off by Indian words and names that may be unfamiliar to you. The characters are well-enough defined that you can easily tell them apart, even if their names sound strange to Western ears, and a comprehensive Glossary defines all the words you need to know, including the many varieties of foods that Puri consumes throughout the case. I got hungry just scanning through the glossary...

Mr. Vish Puri ('Chubby' to his family, 'The Boss' to his employees), founder and director of Most Private Investigators, Ltd. (Confidentiality Is Our Watchword) is India's most celebrated detective, evidenced by his picture on the cover of India Today and the seven national and international awards he's won. He writes letters to the Times of India, scorns Sherlock Holmes as a Johnny-come-lately, favors Savile Row-made safari suits, silk dressing gowns, Sandown hats and to the consternation of his wife and doctor, greasy street food. His cases are mostly matrimonial in nature, families hire him to vet their sons' and daughters' intended spouses (the MPI, Ltd. offers a pricey Pre-Matrimonial Five Star Comprehensive Service) until he's called upon to look into the mysterious disappearance of a maidservant.

The inimitable Mr. Puri is as at home in the poorest villages as in the most opulent and Moghul-esque marble palaces. In his dogged pursuit of the truth, he slips undercover at the drop of a hat and engages in judicious larceny and blackmail. At the Most Private Investigators, Ltd, the client always comes first, though The Boss is entirely capable of holding back information that will damage a bride's one chance at marriage. In short, Mr. Vishi Puri is a most engaging and resourceful character on the order of Rumpole or Precious Ramotswe.

The Boss handles several cases at once with help from his fearless Mummy; his unflappable wife, Rumpi; assorted friends in high and low places; and a stable of investigators nicknamed Facecream, Flush and Handbrake. While investigating the title case, unmasking a balti-cook pretending to be the owner of the Indian Empress Restaurant, tailing a fiancé who's just too good to be true, and one who isn't; someone shoots at The Boss as he's tending his roof-top chili plants. His entire cadre of friends, family and employees is called into service.

Through these coloful characters, Tarquin Hall provides glimpses into contemporary Indian culture--class distinctions, outsourcing, the Byzantine Indian legal system, the erratic infrastructure of modern Delhi that makes it necessary to fill one's washing machine with buckets of water, and domestic life. It is engaging and by turns hilarious and touching; The Boss' plane trip is one of the funniest things I've ever read, while his experience in the town next to the uranium mine brought a lump to my throat. Mr. Vish Puri does what he can, however, and as all the cases are wrapped up and the missing servant is found, the reader happily celebrates the Festival of Lights along with the Puri family.

Mr. Hall uses many Indian colloquialisms for which he mercifully provides a glossary, and there are several allusions to Bollywood that might be unfamiliar to the reader (thank you, Google). While this was initially annoying, I came to appreciate the book not being dumbed down, and found I enjoyed recognizing words as they cropped up again. It's obvious that Mr. Hall adores India and its people; The Case of the Missing Servant is a loving portrait of modern India, warts and all and Mr. Vish Puri is a unique and wonderful new addition to the international detective community.

A servant girl goes missing; her employer is accused of murdering her. Meanwhile, a decorated military man does not like his granddaughter's fiancee; there is something "not right" about him. Vish Puri, owner of Delhi's "Most Private Detective Agency" is on the case!

The plot is satisfying, complex enough but not confusing, and the action moves quickly. There is some violence but not a lot of suspense. The mood overall is light .. not comedic, but definitely not very serious. The characters - particularly Puri himself - are very likable. He has a crew of investigative assistants with bizarre nicknames: Facecream, Tubelight, Handbrake, Flush ... sadly most of these characters are shadows. I want to know more about them, but the chameleonlike femme fatale Facecream is the only one with much of a developed personality.

Not knowing much about India aside from watching a few Bollywood movies, I found the setting to be quite fascinating. The social and political atmosphere of modern India is presented in a way that tells a lot without seeming like a "show-and-tell." The investigation takes Puri from the country clubs and mansions of Delhi's wealthy classes, to the squalor and poverty of uranium miners in Jharkhand. Conveys a very convincing sense of place.

The dialogue is fantastic. I was delighted by the peculiar phrasing of Indian English on almost every page. The book is packed with _bon mots_ which I may have to start using in conversations.

One only complaint: There is a glossary in the back of the book which provides definitions for roughly 100 Indian terms which are used in the book. I suppose this is a useful - perhaps even necessary - feature, but I found it to be terribly distracting to have to flip to the back and look up words every few pages. Footnotes would have been a better solution.

Fun and entertaining. Four and a half stars.

Tarquin Hall's mystery novel, The Case of the Missing Servant, introduces readers to a memorable detective, Vish Puri. Known to old friends and family as Chubby, Vish Puri runs Delhi's Most Private Investigators Ltd., from which he and his staff spend most of their time performing investigations on potential marriage candidates to be sure that families aren't surprised by skeletons in the closets of a bride or groom. While part of The Case of the Missing Servant uncovers sensitive information about a bridegroom, the bulk of this mystery involves the disappearance of a servant and Puri's efforts on behalf of his client to prove that he did not murder the missing girl. Vish Puri has the grey matter to solve a case with the skill of a Hercule Poirot, the ability to draw information from others along the lines of Mma Ramotswe, and a distinctly 21st century Delhi temperament. Readers who love India or mysteries will enjoy reading The Case of the Missing Servant.

Rating: Three-star (Recommended)
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I'll skip the story, since it's basically a whodunit, and there's enough on that already. Let me jump to quickly enumerating what I liked about the book so much:
1.Tarquin Hall, and his characters, has a very quaint, but very good sense of humour. What this achieves is that the book doesn't get weighed down by the seriousness of the many tragic events played out in the book.
2.The book is surprisingly insightful and honest about India, and in particular does a great job of capturing the essence of the predominant Punjabi culture in Delhi/NCR. But more importantly, it doesn't become derogatory or demeaning when touching upon the negativities, as a lot of other books are inclined to do. As a resident of Delhi, I very much appreciated the subtle exposure of the underbelly sans the vitriolic judgments.
Hall's eye for detail is fantastic, whether he's talking about the streets, the culture, the language, the food, the people, or the behavior of Delhi's denizens. He's alarmingly honest, but in a most entertaining way.
3.Finally, this is a very, very easy read, as crime fictions go, and otherwise. Hall almost imbues a children's book sort of feel into it, and makes the book such a breeze.
Overall, I'd strongly recommend reading this book. It's a quick few hours read, and those few hours will have been very well spent. I'm off now to look for more of India's "Most Private Investigator"!

Tarquin Hall has hit the nail on the head. Vish Puri is the slightly eccentric and now sadly disappearing product of the peculiar post independence period in India. These were anglophiles who were fanatic nationalists, religious but not extremist, socialists but not communists, proud of the achievements of independent India, the military and the civil service were their professions of choice and they were just as rigid about who gets in the club as the British were. Unfortunately these interesting characters are now being replaced by photocopied materialistic corporate types. If you've spent any significant time in India, the characters will come come alive to you. And thank god for the glossary. Even though I understand a rough approximation of Hindi, there were many unknown phrases and I found the glossary very helpful. Another reviewer has complained about having the glossary at the end of the book and would have preferred asterisks or parenthesis throughout. I disagree. I find that having the meanings of local phrases throughout the book, spoils the flow. As soon as I found out that there was a glossary, I just read all the phrases so I wouldn't have to keep going back to it. An excellent mystery, set in the turmoil of fast evolving modern Delhi.

This is Tarquin Hall's first mystery involving Vish Puri the owner of India's Most Private Investigators, LTD.—I sincerely hope there are many more to come (several of my other book series have been terminated of late due to the demise of the authors). Puri and his company are based in Delhi and reminds me of the detective Gittes in the movie Chinatown with perhaps a little small dollop of Hercule Poirot mixed in.

Whereas the staple of American detectives is supposed to be infedility cases, this is Inda and Puri's most common cases are performing background checks on potential spouses in the typical arranged marriages. However, not all of Puri's past cases have been so mundane as Puri has not trouble assembling a list of potentially lethal enemies. As the title states, the main, but not sole, case of this novel revolves around locating a missing servant rather than a premarital investigation.

In addition to a well plotted, well characterized mystery, Hall provides us with a view of modern day India where the offshoring business has caused some segements of India to burst into relative prosperity while surrounded by old India. The new prosperity has apparently outstripped Indian infrastructure as well as sorely tested traditional Indian values. While it is dangerous to take as gospel a novelists depiction of an unfamiliar place, the picture painted by Hall is fascinating and provides a unique backdrop for the mystery.

The Case of the Missing Servant is the fiction debut from Tarquin Hall, but it hardly comes off as a freshman effort. This mystery novel features Vish Puri, India's Most Private Investigator whose slogan is, "Confidentiality Is My Watchword". Puri's cases mostly consist of investigating one of the parties of an arranged marriage, but our story finds Puri landing a case of much greater substance. High profile lawyer, Ajay Kasliwal, is accused of the rape and murder of one of his servant girls who turns up missing. Prior to being officially charged, Kasliwal hires Puri to find out what really happened to Mary. Armed with little more knowledge than this (not even Mary's last name), Puri and his team of operatives set about trying to unravel the riddle of Mary's disappearance. Because a direct approach of investigation is ineffective in India's culture, Puri and his team resort to various undercover operations in order to piece together the truth of the matter until the story reaches a satisfying conclusion.

The characters of the story are pretty well done. Most characters are known by nicknames, and this is especially true of Puri's Team made up of Flush, Tubelight, Facecream, and Handbrake. Even Puri is known to many as Chubby (family and friends) or Boss (his operatives). Puri is portrayed as a smart but quirky detective, and he is very likeable. While a master at his craft, he doesn't have as good of a handle on his health. He is overweight, and he resists his wife's and his doctor's attempts to get him to eat better. While her role is minor, Puri's "Mummy" was one of my other favorite characters. She actually takes up the investigation (much to Chubby's chagrin) of the attempt on Puri's life early in the story. It would have been nice to have seen more of her in the novel.

While not a comedy the story does have some funny moments. Chubby avoids air travel if at all possible, but he is forced to fly between Delhi and Jaipur on one occasion. His fear of flying leads to a rather humorous sequence of events. While it only lasts a page or so, it was a laugh out loud moment.

The Case of the Missing Servant is fairly tame. It rarely contains foul language, and it is usually in Hindi. While every good mystery requires a body or two, none of the violence is graphic or gratuitous. The one thing that may trip some people up is the moderate use of Hindi or other foreign terms. There is a short glossary at the end of the book for most of these terms, but I hardly found this to be a problem.

Overall, The Case of the Missing Servant is a very well done novel, and I hope to see future adventures of Vish Puri.

Overall: A-

I'm from India, so it was with quite a few apprehensions that I picked up this book. Books written about a country by foreigners abound with stereotypes and the genre of detective fiction is not the easiest one to handle. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall effect of the book. It is quite a fun, fast-paced read and the India setting makes it special (though still a bit of a stereotype).

The main character is well drawn out but the others (specially the team of Mr Puri) could have used more detailed character portraits. The mystery itself is quite average and leaves an avid fan of detective fiction unsatisfied. Some of the Indian-English bon mots are accurate though many of them seem to be simply made up for effect. A North-Indian talking in English with a South-Indian (whose mother tongue is different) makes sense but fellow Delhi-based Punjabis talking in English amongst themselves is weird and not true. Mr Puri's obsession with British sandown caps is also a far-fetched eccentricity and hard to understand in the context of his proud nationalism.

The picture of a changing India is correct and should make for much more exciting and interesting stories. The reader could have been familiarised better with Delhi & the beautiful city of Jaipur by giving more details. So, a 3/5 for this effort, and a very best of luck for the next one. Looking forward to "The case of the man who died laughing".

I'm a big who-dun-it fan. Poirot is my favorite detective of all, followed by Precious Ramotswe and Sherlock Holmes. Poirot is Poirot because of all his eccentricities, so when I read of a desi equivalent, it piqued my curiosity.

In this book, Tarquin Hall writes about Vish Puri, a 51 year old, portly, Punjabi private investigator plying his trade in Delhi. Puri, who's bread and butter is mostly investigating potential marriage alliances, is hired to clear the name of a lawyer accused of murdering a servant girl in his employ. Mary, the girl in question has disappeared and honest litigator Ajay Kasliwal accused of doing away with her, is embroiled in what looks to be a conspiracy put together by his corrupt enemies. Will Puri be able to stop them putting Kasliwal away for good ?

As a detective novel, this book works although it doesn't have a very tight pace, and in that, it sort of resembles the "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series, rather than a hardcore detective novel. Hall peppers the story with Puri's observations on Delhi and Indian society and government which make interesting reading. Plus Puri is typically Punjabi and Hall manages to introduce his very Punjabi characteristics into the mix.

Puri has set up "Most Private Investigators Ltd." and is aided by nick-named employees in his work - there's FaceCream, Flush, TubeLight, DoorStop and HandBrake all so named for a reason. Then there's Puri's wife Rumpi, his mother "Mummyji", his secretary Elizabeth Rani, the servant boy Sweetu and Puri's friend "Rinku". Even Kasliwal has a nickname; Chippy. Puri and his family live in Gurgaon in a "white, four-bedroom Spanish-style villa with orange-tiled awnings, which they'd furnished from top to bottom in Punjabi baroque". Punjabi baroque indeed - I can quite picture that, LOL !

In describing Puri's abode, the author also gives us a brief history of Delhi, it's surrounding towns, and it's class structure. Tarquin Hall, manages to gauge and write about Indian society quite accurately. Even given that Hall has lived in India, his nuanced knowledge of India and it's customs is impressive. Hall's characters are nicely fleshed out, down to personal details, like the mother-son relationship between the doting (and nosy) Mummyji and Vish. The people in this book have an authentic feel, and Hall even manages to get them to speak in Delhi's "vernacular" English "Everything is all right, though, na ?" His novel is colorful and descriptive, bringing to life Delhi and it's residents with humorous, but true details.

"The Case of the missing servant" was a very enjoyable read.