The first in a detective series that “immediately joins the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as representing the best in international cozies” ( Booklist , starred review). Meet Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator. Portly, persistent, and unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined swath through modern India’s swindlers, cheats, and murderers. In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centers and malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri’s main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties and family priests. But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri’s resources to investigate. With his team of undercover operatives—Tubelight, Flush, and Facecream—Puri combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than two thousand years ago, and reveals modern India in all its seething complexity. “Hall turns to fiction with the debut of what promises to be an outstanding series....An excellent, delightfully humorous mystery with an unforgettable cast of characters, The Case of the Missing Servant immediately joins the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as representing the best in international cozies.” — Booklist (starred review) “Speaking of sweet stuff, consider The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. This first novel is set in Delhi, where Vish Puri, found and director of Most Private Investigators, Ltd., performs discreet investigations into the backgrounds of prospective grooms, with surprising and often comic results.” —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review 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 Missing Servant One Vish Puri, founder and managing director of Most Private Investigators Ltd., sat alone in a room in a guesthouse in Defence Colony, south Delhi, devouring a dozen green chili pakoras* from a greasy takeout box. Puri was supposed to be keeping off the fried foods and Indian desserts he so loved. Dr. Mohan had “intimated” to him at his last checkup that he could no longer afford to indulge himself with the usual Punjabi staples. “Blood pressure is up, so chance of heart attack and diabetes is there. Don’t do obesity,” he’d advised. Puri considered the doctor’s stern warning as he sank his teeth into another hot, crispy pakora and his taste buds thrilled to the tang of salty batter, fiery chili and the tangy red chutney in which he had drowned the illicit snack. He derived a perverse sense of satisfaction from defying Dr. Mohan’s orders. Still, the fifty-one-year-old detective shuddered to think what his wife would say if she found out he was eating between meals—especially “outside” food that had not been prepared by her own hands (or at least by one of the servants). Keeping this in mind, he was careful not to get any incriminating grease spots on his clothes. And once he had finished his snack and disposed of the takeout box, he washed the chutney off his hands and checked beneath his manicured nails and between his teeth for any telltale residue. Finally he popped some sonf into his mouth to freshen his breath. All the while, Puri kept an eye on the house across the way and the street below. By Delhi standards, it was a quiet and exceptionally clean residential street. Defence Colony’s elitist, upper middle-class residents—army officers, doctors, engineers, babus and the occasional press-wallah—had ensured that their gated community remained free of industry, commerce and the usual human detritus. Residents could take a walk through the well-swept streets or idle in the communal gardens without fear of being hassled by disfigured beggars…or having to negotiate their way around arc welders soldering lengths of metal on the sidewalks…or halal butchers slaughtering chickens. Most of the families in Defence Colony were Punjabi and had arrived in New Delhi as refugees following the catastrophic partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. As their affluence and numbers had grown over the decades, they had built cubist cement villas surrounded by high perimeter walls and imposing wrought-iron gates. Each of these minifiefdoms employed an entire company of servants. The residents of number 76, D Block, the house that Puri was watching, retained the services of no fewer than seven full-time people—two drivers, a cook, a cleaner-cum-laundry-maid, a butler and two security guards. Three