The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall (Book Review)

From the publisher:

“Vish Puri, India's self-styled Most Private Investigator, is portly, persistent, and unmistakably Punjabi. Backed by his team of undercover operatives, he cuts a determined swath through India's swindlers, cheats, and murderers. When an honest public litigator is accused of murdering a maidservant, he turns to Puri for his help and discretion. It's a tough case. How will Puri trace the fate of the girl, known only as Mary, in a population of more than one billion? The search for the missing servant takes Puri on a journey that reveals not only the detective's clever methods of investigation but also modern India's vivid, seething complexity.”



Vish Puri, a private investigator living in Delhi, is a very likeable character. He will remind some readers of Columbo or Hercule Poirot, whose nattily dressed appearance conceals an analytical mind. The majority of Puri’s cases are matrimonial investigations into prospective partners. With the changes of a new modern India, detailed to provide an in-depth look at Puri and the world he lives in, families no longer know each other prior to the arranged match. Puri’s investigations reveal the personal backgrounds of the proposed husband or wife: financial, social, moral and any involvement in criminal activity.

Although Puri has been ordered by his doctor to diet, he sneaks his favourite snacks throughout the story. For those who love Indian food, the descriptions will create cravings that need to be satisfied by the time you finish reading. Or before.

Puri has honed his detective skills by using 2000-year old Indian principles of detection. He uses a variety of resourceful techniques at his discretion, such as undercover, larceny and blackmail. His operative assistants have various nicknames: Tubelight, Facecream, Door Stop, Flush and Handbrake, with a multitude of abilities gleaned from not so legal activities. Also assisting Puri are an assortment of friends in high and low places, and those he would rather not assist him: his Mummy (formidable in her own right), and his wife, Rumpi.

The story is complex, fast-paced with hilarious and touching moments while looking at Indian culture. Puri’s investigations take him from the country clubs and mansions of the wealthy classes to the squalor and poverty of the slums of Delhi and Jharkhand. In the end, Puri has done what he could with the majority of his cases closed and the missing servant located in a manner befitting Perry Mason.

Like all good mysteries it does contain a few bodies to keep the plot interesting. The violence is kept to a minimum with low graphic details, and foul language is often in Hindi. At the end of the story is a glossary containing definitions of unfamiliar Indian terms used throughout.

I was pleased to learn that there is a sequel coming, “The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing,” to continue the adventures of Vish Puri, private investigator.



Book format: paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Author website: Tarquin Hall

Available at:

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chapters.indigo.ca

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The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan (Book Review)

Format: Paperback, 640 pages
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Published Paperback: March 10, 2009
Website: Padma Viswanathan.com

The Toss of a Lemon provides an excellent insight into Brahmin culture in the early 20th century spanning three generations. This is a compelling story of a family in the changing times of India through the fight for independence from colonial times.

The story begins in 1896 southeastern India with a marriage proposal, after careful astrological calculations, between Hanumarathnam, a young man with the ability to heal, and ten-year-old Sivakami, a girl who looks “capable of bearing great burdens.” They are married “like everyone else, at an auspicious time on an auspicious day in an auspicious month,” despite Hanumarathnam’s warning to his in-laws that he may die in the ninth year of his marriage.

It is the horoscope that dictates the destiny of Sivakami, widowed at age 19, and her children: a girl, Thangam, and a boy, Vairum. Thangam is a beautiful child whose skin gives off gold vibunthi (dust) with healing properties—a result of her father’s alchemist experiments; and Vairum is a math genius with a skin condition. Their world is one of rituals and superstition within the caste system which undergoes a transformation through the social movements and political events of India. Within all this lies a layer of magical realism woven into peoples’ destinies where there are undeniably forces beyond control that propel them forward.

Although the strict Brahmin caste traditions require Sivakami to shave her head, wear white and not contaminate herself with human touch between dawn and dusk, she rebels by choosing to raise her children in her husband’s home rather than returning to her family’s village to live with her brothers. Aiding Sivakami in this endeavour is Machumi, a non-Brahmin villager and closet gay man, who manages Hanumaranthnam’s real estate properties and business.

The complexity of the characters with rich descriptions of their interaction in a changing world is a work of brilliance. Ms Viswanathan describes in subtle detail each situation as it unfolds, providing just enough information and touches of humour before moving to the next keeping a reader enthralled. The pace allows the reader to savour while losing themselves within, experiencing the life of Sivakami and her family.

I recommend this book for anyone who wants to settle in a comfortable place to read a family epic filled with an intimate look into life in India.


Padma Viswanathan is a fiction writer, playwright and journalist from Edmonton, Alberta. Her writing awards include residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Banff Playwrights' Colony, and first place in the 2006 Boston Review Short Story Contest. She lives with the poet and translator Geoffrey Brock and their children in Fayetteville, Arkansas.