The Vish Puri Mysteries

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

S1:2

8h 25m

0

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Another adventure of the Indian detective Vish Puri, “a man as fussy as Poirot and every bit as clever” (AudioFile). Murder is no laughing matter. Yet a prominent Indian scientist dies in a fit of giggles when a Hindu goddess appears from a mist and plunges a sword into his chest. The only one laughing now is the main suspect, a powerful guru named Maharaj Swami, who seems to have done away with his most vocal critic. Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator, master of disguise and lover of all things fried and spicy, doesn’t believe the murder is a supernatural occurrence. But proving who really killed Dr. Suresh Jha will require all the detective’s earthly faculties. To get at the truth, he and his team of undercover operatives—Facecream, Tubelight, and Flush—travel from the slum where India’s hereditary magicians must be persuaded to reveal their secrets to the holy city of Haridwar on the Ganges. How did the murder weapon miraculously crumble into ash? Will Maharaj Swami have the last laugh? And, perhaps more important, why is Puri’s wife, Rumpi, chasing petty criminals with his own mother when she should be at home making his lunch? Stopping only to indulge his ample Punjabi appetite, Puri uncovers a web of spirituality, science, and sin that is unique in the annals of crime.

The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

S1:3

9h 23m

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Tarquin Hall’s irresistible protagonist, private investigator Vish Puri, has become an international favorite through a series that splendidly evokes the color and bustle of Delhi and the tang of contemporary India" (Seattle Times). Now the gormandizing, spectacularly mustachioed sleuth finds himself facing down his greatest fears in an explosive case involving the Indian and Pakistani mafias. When the elderly father of a top Pakistani cricketer playing in the multimillion-dollar Indian Premier League dies during a postmatch dinner, it's not a simple case of Delhi Belly. His butter chicken has been poisoned. To solve the case, Puri must penetrate the region’s organized crime, following a trail that leads deep into Pakistan—the country in which many members of the PI's family were massacred during the 1947 partition of India. The last piece of the puzzle, however, turns up closer to home when Puri learns of the one person who can identify the killer. Unfortunately it is the one woman in the world with whom he has sworn never to work: his mother, Mummy-ji.

The Case of the Love Commandos

S1:4

8h 29m

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In this contemporary Romeo and Juliet story set within India’s caste system, private investigator Vish Puri faces his most difficult challenge to date—a high-stakes mystery involving one of India's most controversial commodities: love. When Ram and Tulsi fall in love, the young woman’s parents are dead-set against the union. She is from a high-caste family, but her boyfriend is an untouchable from the lowest strata of Indian society. Young Tulsi’s father locks her up and promises to hunt down and kill the “lover boy dog.” Fortunately, India’s Love Commandos, a real-life group of volunteers dedicated to helping mixed-caste couples, come to the rescue. They successfully free Tulsi, but Ram has gone missing. The task of finding him falls to India’s “most private investigator.” Unfortunately, Vish Puri is not having a good month. He has already failed to recover the millions stolen from the First National Bank of Punjab; his wallet has been stolen; and worst of all, his arch rival, investigator Hari Kumar, is also trying to locate Ram. To solve the case and reunite the star-crossed lovers, Puri and his team of misfit assistants must infiltrate Ram’s village and navigate the caste politics shaped by millennia-old prejudices. Critics hailed the The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken, the last installment in the Vish Puri Mysteries, as Tarquin Hall's best yet, saying that each book is "more complicated and dangerous than the one before" (Huffington Post). Now, with The Case of the Love Commandos, Hall keeps raising the stakes, delivering more twists, turns, and surprises than ever before.

The Case of the Reincarnated Client

S1:5

8h 50m

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A client claiming she was murdered in a past life is a novel dilemma even for Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator. When a young woman comes forward saying she’s the reincarnation of Riya Kaur, a wife and mother who vanished during the bloody 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Puri is dismissive. He’s busy enough dealing with an irate matrimonial client whose daughter is complaining about her groom’s thunderous snoring. Puri’s indomitable Mummy-ji however is adamant the client is genuine. How else could she so accurately describe under hypnosis Riya Kaur’s life and final hours? Driven by a sense of duty—the original case was his late father’s—Puri manages to acquire the police file only to find that someone powerful has orchestrated a cover-up. Forced into an alliance with his mother that tests his beliefs and high blood pressure as never before, it’s only by delving into the past with the help of his reincarnated client that Puri can hope to unlock the truth.

The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck

S1:6

7h 57m

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Portly, perceptive, and spectacularly moustachioed, India’s finest private detective, Vish Puri, tackles his most difficult case to date, in Tarquin Hall’s delightfully humorous whodunit series set in New Delhi. “Vish Puri is the Indian Poirot.” —Financial Times (London) “Vish Puri [is] a Punjabi Sherlock Holmes.” —The Guardian (London) For Vish Puri, India’s most private detective, the news that he has won the long-coveted International Detective of the Year award, to be presented in a glitzy ceremony in London, makes this the best day of his life. But to his deep dismay, a senior bureaucrat from the Ministry of Finance gives him a secret mission he can’t refuse: to track down India’s most-wanted fugitive. Dr. Bhatt’s medicines caused the deaths of hundreds, and the billionaire fraudster—code named the Bombay Duck—fled for the United Kingdom before he could be arrested. Puri is only spending a week in London. He has never set foot in the UK before. And most important of all, he has already promised his wife that he won’t do any work while they’re away. There’s only one solution: lie, lie, lie. Puri dives headfirst into the case, in between visiting all the tourist sites, aided and abetted by his formidable, meddling Mummy-ji, whom Puri definitely did not invite to join them. But can Puri hook the Bombay Duck and bring him to justice before the fugitive’s many enemies get to him first? Packed with the sights, sounds, and flavors of both New Delhi and London, this is an irresistible listen for fans of Alexander McCall Smith, Harini Nagendra, and Jesse Sutanto from an author who divides his time between India and the United Kingdom.