Crime candy

A suspenseful gripping plot, a heavy air of mystery and lots of action woven together with thriller moments is what it takes to keep one hooked to that detective novel. If you are a die-hard fan of good crime novels then British-born journalist and author Tarquin Hall’s latest offering The Case of the Missing Servant is a must-read.
It opens with Vish “Chubby” Puri, India’s most private investigator, working on his “case”. Hall explains that Puri is not based on any one person, but he has borrowed some of his characteristics from a few real life Delhi detectives whom he interviewed.
He says, “Vish resembles Punjabi men I’ve known and his love for street food, for example, comes from a friend of mine who knows all the best dhabas in Delhi. His boastfulness is a characteristic shared by many North Indian men. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have gone to interview someone and, before you get round to asking them a single question, they start telling you about their accomplishments, honours that have been bestowed upon them.”
He is quick to add a recent example when he was in Ludhiana interviewing a local lawyer as part of his research for the second Vish Puri book. “The man, who was extraordinarily hospitable, spent at least an hour showing me around every part of his newly constructed house. In the sitting room he showed me all the tourist nicknacks he had collected from around the world — little bells, coasters, plates depicting Swiss Alpine scenes — and in his office he showed me his degrees, a picture of him standing with the chief minister etc. He also told me a story about how his father had been introduced to Prince Charles and the prince had recognised that his shoes were English.”
Hall reveals that Puri’s character has come out of spending a great deal of time around such gentlemen. And he found a good many of them to be extremely sharp.
He says, “They operate in an extremely complex culture and to survive and get to the top they have to be extremely street-wise operators. You don’t meet many people like them nowadays in the West and I find them extremely endearing.”
Talking about the inspiration behind this mystery novel with a Delhi-based, Punjabi private investigator as the protagonist, he says, “I was talking to my wife’s masi’s daughter in Delhi. Her parents were trying to get her married off and she was telling me how she had been investigated by a private investigator. Apparently, this man had called up her work colleagues and asked them about her character — did she smoke, have a boyfriend, etc. He also asked one of them to bring her out into the street so that the parents of a prospective boy could drive past and get a look at her. I guess they didn’t like what they saw because she’s still trying to find a match. But I decided to track down some Delhi detectives and write about them. I interviewed several and this culminated in a piece for the Sunday Times in the UK.”
He was quite amazed by their stories and the types of cases they were dealing with: not only matrimonial, but murders, kidnappings, fraud. “One detective described to me how he had even gone undercover in a nudist colony! Another showed me all his homemade bugs and talked about how he bribed employees at telecom companies to provide mobile phone records,” he says.
Though Hall confirms that he never wanted to be an investigator like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, he says being a journalist means you have to be an investigator and he has always been interested in finding out about how other people’s lives work. So it was thrilling to sketch the character of Vish.
He describes Puri’s job to be extremely challenging. “Unearthing the truth in India is never easy. So although Vish masterminds his own investigations, he does not work alone. Like Chanakya, whom Puri reveres as the founder of the art of intelligence gathering and espionage, he uses undercover operatives to get the information he needs,” he says.
Vish has nicknames for people. Whether it is Facecream, a beautiful, feisty Nepali who has many faces: one day she might be working as a household maid, the next as a sexy party girl or Flush who was so-named because he was the first to have a flush toilet in his village.
So what is the significance of these names? “Puri gives nicknames to most of the people he works with. He calls his wife, Rumpi and he himself is known as Chubby. My wife is an NRI and everyone in her family has a nickname. I know one family with sons called Happy and Lucky,” he answers.
A non-Indian, Hall is quite adept at intricately describing the different ways in which people live in India. He attributes his Indian connection to his wife who is from India.
“Anu, my wife, has a lot of relatives in Delhi and different parts of Punjab. I’ve spent the best part of five years living in Delhi and before that almost two years in Pakistan. So I’ve spent a lot of time in their homes. They’re great characters, very colourful: they love to tell jokes, banter, eat big meals. We’re always teasing one another. So it’s a scene I’m extremely familiar with and enjoy immensely. I love the way you get three or four generations all living together. Sure, it can lead to problems, but there is often a great deal of love and warmth as well. Coming from a family that is scattered all over the place, it’s something I’ve come to value and admire,” he adds.
Belief plays an important role in people’s lives here. So some of the characters in the book are superstitious and believe in djinns. Did he need to put the element of superstition in the book? “I thought it important that Puri should be religious. He is a practising Hindu. After he is shot at in the first book, he goes to the temple to give thanks for his narrow escape. He is obviously discerning and a great believer in logic and deduction, but he does not dismiss the power of the Almighty and of fate,” he says.
Hall sums up by revealing that in its sequel — The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing — Puri will be seen on the trail of a Godman, a big Guru, who is suspected of committing a murder.