The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

(Paperback)

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The wonderful third outing for Delhi detective Vish Puri ('the Indian Hercule Poirot' Financial Times) 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 billion dollar 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 rightIs 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.

Reviews

This book is written with a wry sense of humour and a light touch . . . The author perfectly captures the cadences of Anglo-Indian English and the glossary of Indian terms at the back of the book is invaluable. This is the third in the Vish Puri series of books and I eagerly await the fourth. * Crime Review *
The Punjabi Poirot is dogged by calamities in this comic tale * Woman *
Outstanding third mystery . . . Well drawn, colorful characters bolster a whodunit sure to appeal to those who enjoy a dash of humor with their crime. * Publishers Weekly *
This lovely series is a great example of crime fiction functioning as a foreign holiday for the armchair traveler. Halls readers become happily immersed in the glorious rhythms and neologism of Dilli language, while the cuisine is so well described you can almost smell it. * Morning Star *
I love Halls blend of inventive plot and Ealing-Comedy eccentricity. * Saga magazine *

Author Bio

Tarquin Hall is a writer and journalist who has lived and worked in much of South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the US. Tarquin first went to India in the mid 1990s where he met his wife, journalist Anu Anand. They now live in Delhi with their two children. He is the author of several non-fiction works and two other Vish Puri stories, The Case of the Missing Servant and The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing.