Available Formats
Hardback, Large Print Edition
Published: 25th September 2025
CD-Audio, Audiobook
Published: 4th March 2025
The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck
By (Author) Tarquin Hall
Severn House Large Print
Severn House Large Print
25th September 2025
26th September 2025
Large Print Edition
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Crime and mystery: cosy mystery
Crime and mystery: private investigator / amateur detectives
Narrative theme: Sense of place
Hardback
304
Width 144mm, Height 222mm
Portly, perceptive and spectacularly moustachioed, India's finest private detective, Vish Puri, tackles his most difficult case to date in the long-awaited return of Tarquin Hall's delightful humorous whodunit series set in New Delhi.
"Vish Puri is the Indian Poirot" Financial Times
"Vish Puri [is] a Punjabi Sherlock Holmes" The Guardian
When Vish Puri, India's Most Private Detective, learns he's won the long-coveted International Detective of the Year award, it's supposed to be a secret. But within hours, it seems all of Delhi knows - and his indomitable Mummy-ji announces she'll be coming with him to the ceremony in London, never mind that she's not been invited.
To add to his woes, a senior government bureaucrat gives him an undercover mission he can't refuse. Puri is tasked with tracking down India's most-wanted fugitive: a billionaire pharmaceutical fraudster codenamed Bombay Duck, who's rumoured to be hiding in the British capital.
Puri's only spending a week in London . . . and he's already promised his wife he won't work during their once-in-a-lifetime trip. In desperation, he enlists the help of his reluctant nephew Jags and dives headfirst into the case. But can Puri hook the Bombay Duck and bring him to justice - all the while keeping his investigations secret from his wife and meddling mother
This concisely told tale is stuffed full of plot and wonderful characters * Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine *
A comic and insightful detective story * Booklist *
Solving the mystery is only part of the fun. Jolly good * Kirkus Reviews *
An amalgam of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes . . . Will please fans of Alexander McCall Smith * Library Journal *
Hilarious . . . Filled with engaging twists. Vish is a wonderfully realized character . . . You can dive in anywhere in this series and be rewarded with a rich experience * Booklist Starred Review of The Case of the Reincarnated Client *
Lively, amusing . . . Hall creates delightful characters and provides illuminating glimpses of contemporary Indian life * Publishers Weekly on The Case of the Reincarnated Client *
Humor is mixed with skilful plotting and realistic descriptions of contemporary India's overflowing street life
* Booklist Starred Review of The Case of the Love Commandos *Tarquin Hall started travelling when he was eighteen and worked as a cowboy in Texas. When lassoing cattle proved to be a skill that eluded him, he drifted into journalism, cutting his teeth in Afghanistan, and then East Africa and Turkey. A subsequent career in TV news took him to many other countries. While based in India, where he spent ten years, he married broadcaster and children's author, Anu Anand.