Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Elusive Bombay Duck (2025).
Good Reads meta-data is 244 pages rated 4.50 by 84 litizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: India.
Verdict: Amusing culture clash.
Tagline: Pass the aloo, and hold the murderer.
Vish Puri, the world’s greatest Indian detective returns to the field after a five-year sabbatical. But he is playing away without the aid of the Handbrake, Tubelight, Flush, Missy and the rest of his agency and on unfamiliar turf. Although West Ham has a lot of India about it, and that comforts him.
Why would Puri leave India and all its food behind? He has been invited to London to receive an award and of course his wife and mother demand to go along. Not ideal but he has no choice but to agree. Then a representative of a Minister who could make his life miserable suborns him into an investigation while in London. Unofficial, hush-hush, secret. As if. This fact he tries to keep from the distaff side but his mother, as always, see through him.
While his original thought was to see sights and sites, with wife and mother along, he knows they will do the rounds of relatives distant, tenuous, and friends of friends and more with little chance to go to the British Museum, Big Ben, or the War Rooms that he wanted to see.
The more Puri tries to trim his sails, the more deeply entangled he becomes. As usual Mummy-ji sets off on her own mission, while assisting him, against his will. A new ingredient is a London born and bred nephew who acts, unwillingly at first, as Puri’s guide and translator. When he discover his fat, old uncle from Indian is on the trail of a major villain, he warms to the chase. Nicely done this clash of cultures and generations.Then there is the closing explanation of how Mummy-ji was able to get a passport and visa in record time. Nice that, too.
‘Come to India and learn to speak proper English,’ Puri tells his street smart nephew.
A lot of characters to keep track of and, of course, plenty of food for the big man. I could not fathom why the hairy villain wazzed against the wall, and so drew attention to himself.
Note for the cognoscenti, ‘Bombay Duck’ is…. Look it up and be informed.
6th in series I have read.