The opening of Hall’s outstanding third mystery featuring PI Vish Puri (after 2010’s The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing) sets the tone nicely as Puri tinkers with the bathroom scale to prevent his wife, who refers to him as Chubby, from learning that he’s gained weight. Soon after, a representative of the Moustache Organization of Punjab (MOP) asks him to find the fiend who cut off half of the record-setting long whiskers of one of its members. This case fades as he looks into a more serious matter—the poisoning of a guest at a dinner following a high-stakes cricket match. A resourceful and dogged investigator, Puri follows a twisting trail that connects with corruption in the sport and illegal gambling. Well-drawn colorful characters bolster a whodunit sure to appeal to those who enjoy a dash of humor with their crime.

India’s Most Private Investigator faces threats from near and far as he grapples with the death of a Pakistani cricket-ace’s father.

The butter chicken served at the VVIP table of the Delhi Durbar Hotel promises to be most delicious. It also proves fatal. One bite and Faheem Khan keels over dead. Fortunately, one of the VVIPs is Vish Puri, invited with his wife and Mummy-ji by his nephew Rohan of the Delhi Cowboys to a post-match feast. His presence on the scene prompts Sir James Scott, working for the Indian Cricket Board, to hire him to investigate. Unfortunately, Faheem’s son Kamran, bowler for the Kolkata Colts, has gone back to Rawalpindi to mourn. So Puri, who had never met a Pakistani in person before the Khans, must travel across a most-feared border in pursuit of justice. His dread of being in Pakistan is soon replaced by the terror of learning that Mummy, who pretends to be on a mission to bury the ashes of Ritu Auntie’s late husband in the Ganges at the holy city of Haridwar, is actually investigating Khan’s death too. While Vish focuses on a point-shaving scheme as an obvious motive, Mummy zeroes in on her fellow VVIPs. But what could the elderly mother of Satish Bhatia, the Call Center King, or Mrs. Megha Dogra, wife of Ram Dogra, the Prince of Polyester, know about the murder of an elderly Pakistani?