Tarquin Hall's Vish Puri is an interesting Delhi-based character with an interesting family and bunch of assistants. His main people go with code names such as Tubelight, Handbrake, Facecream while he himself goes by the name of Boss. His secretary however is Ms. Elizabeth Rani and does not remind you of Della Street at all. He travels in his ambassador, is scared of flying and loves his food.
Vish Puri is contracted to find a maid servant who goes missing by a man who is her master. Shortly afterwards the master is arrested on charges of raping and murdering the said missing servant. A badly mutilated body is also found. Vish moves quickly to Jaipur, does his investigations, plants his people in achieving this near impossible task of finding a person named Mary with no other info. At the same time, Vish is also contracted to check the character of o young MNC executive who is engaged to a an ex-military man's grand daughter. On a third front there is a shooting incident on Vish which he escapes.
All in all, a fine roller coaster in Delhi and Jaipur, interesting characters with their back stories. Tarquin writes in a leisurely, unhurried manner and takes time to describe all the characters and their quirks so you feel like you know them. Much better than some of the two dimensional characters I have met in many books. The mystery itself was not as interesting or gripping as I would have expected and Puri finds important clues rather easily. But since you like him, its not much of a deal to stay with him and his delightful bunch as they go about unraveling the mystery of the missing servant (and other side stories).
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