The latest adventures of Indian detective Vish Puri continues the series that “immediately joins the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as representing the best in international cozies” ( Booklist , starred review). 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, and 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 Mummy-ji when she should be at home making his rotis? Stopping only to indulge his ample Punjabi appetite, Puri uncovers a web of spirituality, science, and sin unique in the annals of crime. “Delightful . . . Hall splendidly evokes the color and bustle of Delhi streets and the tang of contemporary India.” — Seattle Times , “Best Crime Novels of 2010” “Hall writes amusing mysteries…[his] affectionate humor is embedded with barbs.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review “Modern India, in all its colorful squalor, provides a vivid backdrop for this well-crafted whodunit.” —Jean Westmoore, Buffalo News “Delightful . . . a terrific book with wonderful puzzle plot and a great setting.” — The Globe and Mail “Hall takes the reader into a very Indian, very Delhi web of spirituality, sin, slums, and power broking, but all treated with a veneer of wit and intelligent absurdity.” — India Today “Splendid . . . Entertaining . . . Vish Puri is large, constantly hungry, a perpetual victim of Delhi’s traffic congestion, and a wonderfully engaging P.I. . . . A joy to read.” — The Times (London) Tarquin Hall is a British author and journalist who has lived and worked throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. He is the author of The Case of the Missing Servant , The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing , and The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken , along with dozens of articles and three works of nonfiction, including the highly acclaimed Salaam Brick Lane , an account of a year spent living above a Bangladeshi sweatshop in London’s notorious East End. He lives in Delhi with his wife, Indian-born journalist Anu Anand, and their son. The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing One Ensconced on the backseat of his Ambassador with the windows rolled up and the air-conditioning working full blast, Vish Puri kept a wary eye on the crack in the car’s wind-screen. It had started off as a chink—the work of a loose stone shot from the wheels of a speeding truck on Mathura Road that afternoon. But despite the sticky tape fixed to the glass like a bandage, the fissure was beginning to spread. Delhi’s infernal heat pressed down on the windscreen, trying to exploit its weakness, determined to conquer the defiant pocket of cool air within. The detective imagined what it must feel like to be a deep-sea explorer, listening to your tiny craft creaking under thousands of tons of pressure. That Monday in early June, the top temperature in the capital had been 44 Celsius, or 111 Fahrenheit—so hot, the tarmac on the roads had grown pliable and sticky like licorice. So hot that even now, an hour after darkness had fallen, the air felt like fire in the lungs. Nothing dampened the frenetic spirit of Delhi’s rush hour, however. Everywhere Puri looked, thousands upon thousands of people were making their way through the heat, the roar of the traffic, and the belching fumes illuminated in the headlights. Laborers, servants, and students crowded into non-air-conditioned buses; bicyclists in sweat-soaked shirts strained against their pedals; families of three, four, even five rode on scooters, mothers sitting sidesaddle, infants in their laps and older children sandwiched in between. And everywhere commerce flourished. Chunks of ice-cooled coconut and bootleg copies of Booker Prize novels were being sold by children meandering through the crawling traffic. Watermelons were heaped on the pavements. Handbills advertising the powers of a hakim,* who promised to exorcise malignant spirits and counteract curses, were being slipped under windshield wipers. As Puri watched countless faces slick and shiny with sweat, eyes blinking in the pollution, lips parched with thirst, he was struck by how stoically “Dilli wallahs,” as Delhiites were