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's 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's 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.
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“In Hall’s thought-provoking and charming fourth mystery featuring PI Vish Puri a young Delhi couple’s plan to marry runs afoul of the bride’s powerful father, who objects to his future son-in-law’s low caste…This series has dealt with progressively more serious topics, but Hall, the author of Salaam Brick Lane and two other works of nonfiction, hasn’t lost his light touch.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Vish Puri of Delhi, head of Most Private Investigators, Ltd., is regarded by many (and himself) as the best private eye in India…As in any Puri novel, a great deal of humor about Puri’s family life is mixed with skillful plotting and realistic descriptions of contemporary India’s overflowing street life.”
— Booklist (starred review)“Once again, India’s Most Private Investigator solves his case with panache.”
— Kirkus Reviews“Vish Puri becomes embroiled in a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story set in India. As she is wont to do, his mother helps investigates in her own inimitable style. Do try Hall’s fourth entry in his charming and gently humorous series.”
— Library JournalBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Tarquin Hall is a writer and journalist who has lived and worked in much of South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States. He is the author of Mercenaries, Missionaries, and Misfits: Adventures of an Underage Journalist; To the Elephant Graveyard; Salaam Brick Lane: A Year in the New East End; and the Vish Puri series of mystery novels.
Sam Dastor studied English at
Cambridge and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His early theatrical experience includes a spell
at the National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier and time spent acting in the
West End. For the Royal Shakespeare Company, he has been seen in Timon of Athens, Tales from Ovid, and a world tour of A Servant to Two Masters. His many television appearances include I, Claudius; Yes, Minister; Mountbatten;
Julius Caesar; and Fortunes of War. He has also appeared in
the films Made, Jinnah, and Such a Long
Journey, recorded over a thousand broadcasts for the BBC, and narrated
numerous audio books.