Bowled Over Again

The adventures of a portly Punjabi private eye continues

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 11 March 2013


After discovering and enjoying Tarquin Hall's first two Vish Puri mysteries about two years ago, I was "doing tension" waiting for the next instalment since reading about it online. It quietly slipped into bookstores in the middle of 2012.

I had thought that The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken was a working title.

When the third Vish Puri mystery unfolds, the portly Punjabi private eye is in the bathroom weighing himself, and the signs aren't good. Things take a dark turn when Puri, eager to avoid a monumental scolding from dear wife Rumpi over his weakness for high-calorie munchies, resorts to (gasp!) rigging the bathroom scales and quaffing diet pills.

However, the real mystery begins when Faheem Khan, the father of Pakistani cricket star Kamran Khan, croaks after eating some tainted butter chicken during a dinner party. Puri suspects the incident may also be tied to a poisoned dog that interrupted an earlier cricket game.

So begins our hero's descent into the shadowy world of underground betting syndicates, cricket match-fixing and money laundering. Puri is also investigating the theft of somebody's record-breaking moustache, a case that's more for comic relief rather than advancing the main plot.

Also making a return are Puri's crack team of mostly undercover operatives: professional thief Tubelight, Nepali femme fatale Facecream, electronics wiz Flush, and his secretary Elizabeth Rani, as well as the somewhat lovable scoundrel Rinku, Puri's childhood friend.

And how can I not mention Puri's mom, who's also a bit of a sleuth herself? Mummy-ji, who was also at the dinner party, had a look at Kamran Khan and, you'd swear, it's like she'd seen a ghost.

On the pretext of helping a friend, she does some investigation of her own, revisiting the horrors she'd witnessed after the partitioning of India and Pakistan in 1947. Of course, mother and son would eventually find themselves co-operating in an effort to find Faheem Khan's killer.

Those who have enjoyed the first two books will be glad to know that the magic is preserved in this one. The writing is compelling, entertaining and crafted with the wry eye of a well-travelled expat.

With topics such as cricket betting syndicates and the aftermath of Partition, Hall's latest Vish Puri novel is darker than the first two. Puri's assistant Tubelight braves the paltry, stomach-turning living conditions in the slums in his search for the poisoned dog's remains. Our hero's life is threatened several times. A tragedy in Puri's family comes to light.

Another topic that is touched upon briefly is the alleged trade of blood diamonds in Surat, considered the world's diamond capital. We only get the barest of hints that the mastermind may be laundering money by buying diamonds, and that's it.

There are plenty of funny bits in the narrative as well as the dialogue. For one, the Punjabi PI is bewildered by the IT jargon used by one of his suspects. "What the hell was 'dynamic content'?" our protagonist wonders. "And how could a computer eat cookies?"

An entertaining lesson on Mumbaiya pigdin/Indian English slang can be found in an informant's exchange with Puri. A dead murder suspect, "Fawda Bhaiyya was game bajaana suumdi style", so he couldn't have hanged himself.

Besides, the deceased "was dedu foot so couldn't reach the punkah. Plus, he was totally fultoo and doing balle balle with his biscuit."

Have fun Googling that. But I'm sure you'd rather read the book.

The realism of Puri's world buoys seemingly outa elements such as Flush's remotely operated robot with a camera, leaving readers free from having to suspend disbelief and follow the hijinks of the intrepid Indian investigator, his gang and his mom.

The only major gripe I had was that my paperback edition does not include the "three mouthwatering recipes from the Vish Puri family kitchen" as promised by some retailers.

Spicy, scrumptious, and at times side-splitting and surreal, The Case of The Deadly Butter Chicken is an excellent continuation of the Vish Puri series.

(Coincidentally, there's a real Indian cricketer called Kamran Khan out there. For maximum reading pleasure, please unplug yourself from the Web and remember that it's fiction.)


This version includes a correction. Also, here's my review of the first two books.

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The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

Tarquin Hall
Hutchinson (2012)
360 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-09-193741-6

News: Michelin Snark, And Slaying The Hydra

Twitter is, it seems, a huge pool of negativity. And not a good indicator of public opinion. Evidence of the former may be found in this list of choice "passive aggressive" tweets from Michelin reviewers, which also suggests that 'pros' are no better than Yelpers.

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A day in the life of a senior (digital) editor at The Atlantic. Also, here's a day in the life of a freelancer who was asked to repurpose his article for The Atlantic - for nothing.

Felix Salmon delves into the issue in a Reuters blog. There's more at Gawker, which is - I think - saying that writers who have to support themselves and their dependents cannot afford to write for media outlets without pay. Ron Hogan threw in his two cents as well.

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Presenting, the top ten worst sex scenes in modern literature. Hey, didn't all these win the Bad Sex Award at some point?

This question comes up from time to time: Why is literary sex generally so bad? Someone tries to get to the bottom of the rarity of good literary sex. Perhaps the writers are too ... embarrassed to be sexy and, therefore, crack under the pressure to perform?

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John Scalzi, among others, rails at a "HORRIBLE AWFUL TERRIBLE APPALLING DISGUSTING" publishing contract "WHICH IS BAD". The contract, offered by Random House's digital-only imprint Hydra, had terms which some would consider exploitative.

Random House has issued an open letter to critics of the contract, "strongly" disagreeing with their points of view. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) wrote back to say they're maintaining their stance and that "there is very little to discuss."

Victoria Strauss over at Writer Beware is not a fan of the contract's terms, but her comments on the issue are also worth reading. How this will play out remains to be seen.

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What else cropped up? Let's see:

• An attempt to read and blog about Publisher's Weekly's bestseller-list-topping books for the past 100 years.
• Even if blogging doesn't sell books, give it a go anyway.
• Amish Tripathi, re-teller of the Hindu god Shiva's tale in the Shiva trilogy, gets a seven-figure advance for his next book(s). Is he the subcontinent's Dan Brown?
• There are more guy reviewers than gals in some major lit journals. Looking at, say, The Star, one would think Malaysian men don't read.
• When Tash Aw read at Silverfish and optimism for Malaysian writing.
• "I was bitter. I wanted to sell my own book. And I still want some literary immortality of my own." 'Failed' novelist apologises for trashing novels of Keith Gessen and Nathaniel Rich in his search for that "literary immortality".
• Comedian Russell Brand's powerful, unfunny outpourings about addiction. Riveting stuff. Can't believe he wrote it.
• Hilary Mantel speaks out on the media storm over her "royal bodies" lecture, which has only propelled her name further up the charts. Meanwhile, Mantel adds the £40,000 "British Nobel", the David Cohen award, to her increasingly crowded mantelpiece.
• Mike Godwin on his Law - yes, that one - and other stuff.
• "Who needs Anne Frank?" What the famous diary (and, by extension, the Holocaust) means for boomers, Gen-X and millennials.
• Seven grammar rules that aren't worth losing sleep over.
• Sebastian Faulks to (try channelling PG Wodehouse and) pen a new Jeeves novel. All the best, Faulks.
• A dispatch from a Congo literary festival.

Herbs Do Weird Things To People

This piece is a little different from the kinds I usually write, and it's not (just) because of the herbs.

Since writing this I've learned that: a) Not everyone gets a clove of awesome fried garlic, which could be another reason why the fries are awesome (garlic-and-herb infused oil?); b) myBurgerLab is planning collaborations with local startups Forty Licks and Smooshie Juice, so McDonald's is in trouble; c) the crispy savoury thing in the A++ is a wafer made of grilled parmesan cheese; and d) did TMI modify their file structure again?

Anyway, I should start cutting down my trips there; I work nearby and it's a 15- to 25-minute drive from there plus heavy traffic. It has reached a point where the staff recognise me on sight.

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Burger trippin'

Flavours from of this 'lab' are so good, they're almost illegal

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 09 March 2013


For weeks, Melody has heard her friends wax lyrical about this burger joint. Feeling a sort of burger fatigue, we put off investigating this place until one rainy weekend. It always seems to rain each time we embark on burger hunts.

Gateway to meaty, charcoal-bunned
awesomeness; photo ©Alexandra Wong

Our first attempt to find myBurgerLab was not successful. And we thought Salak South was a Bermuda Triangle for traffic. But we eventually found it, the McDonald's for hipsters and purveyors of Instagrammable burgers.

Inside, there was barely any room to stand. Décor was threadbare, not unlike similar hipster joints popping up all over the Klang Valley. Slogans, notices, signs and wall decorations were sprinkled with wit. That wall painting of a giant burger? Strain your eyes and you'll see a hidden message.

Ordering could be a problem. So many varieties on the chalkboard menu - what to choose? And the ingredients - ever had maple syrup and hash browns in a burger?

In the end, you just close your eyes and point. They're all just as pricey.

Melody explored her masochistic side with a "Kick in the Face" while I went with the simpler-sounding "A++" - with eyes wide open.

Behind the counter is a hot, steaming burger assembly line. Plum-sized balls of bright pink minced meat are laid out on a ledge near the griddle before they're transported onto hot metal, cooked and pressed into patties.

Various burger components are made separately before they're stacked between the trademark charcoal buns and bussed to the tables or packed for take-away.

On a good day (for the restaurant, not you) an eternity and a half can pass before your order number appears on the LCD display above the counter. The six to eight people in the kitchen can barely keep up.

"Kick in the Face", about to kick someone's face in;
photo ©Alexandra Wong

Melody's "Kick in the Face", a "mustard-grilled patty" with jalapenos and horseradish sauce, looked rather subdued but the flavours were whoa. The horseradish sauce made all the difference, adding a slightly nutty layer of flavour.

I couldn't tell whether the crispy savoury thing in my A++ meat-and-mushroom thing was beef bacon or something else. Both were delicious.

What I was not prepared for was the fries.

- OMG FRIES WITH HERBS ROSEMARY FRAGRANT MAYBE THYME AND OREGANO CRISPY OUTSIDE CREAMY RICH INSIDE SALTY FINGERLICKING GOOD -

The herbs were a nice touch. It's one of those things you never think of but makes sense once you've experienced it. Who knew a dash of mixed dried Italian herbs could turn mundane into magnificent?

Oh, here's some red dipping sauce.

- OHDEARME IS THIS SPICY PEPPER MAYO OMNOMNOMNOM LIKE PRINGLES ONLY MOIST FRESH HOT AND IN 3D CANNOT STOP MOREMOREMORE -

These are some wicked fries. And it comes with a wrinkled clove of garlic that's fried, salted and herbed like the potatoes - and also tasted good. I can only imagine that it goes well with beer, because I don't drink.

On a Tuesday one week later, I returned to myBurgerLab to round up the exploration with a Beautiful Mess 4.0, a tower of a burger with a breaded and fried portobello mushroom nearly as big as the patty and a sunny-side-up on top, which was said to have been refined four times. I had to wait about half an hour because they made a beautiful mess of my order.

myBurgerLab's A++ Burger, the awesome fries and magic
red sauce; photo ©Alexandra Wong

I got the impression that myBurgerLab is perpetually packed. No surprise, since they only open for dinner, taking half the day to prepare the raw ingredients and kitchen. Customers fill their cups from a dispenser at the back while their burgers cook.

"We consider today a slow day," said the lady at the counter. I believed her.

When my order eventually arrived, I pondered. Eat or run?

Then I spied the shelves for standing customers inside and outside the joint. That made things easier. I stepped outside, away from the crowd, and opened my take-away package.

There is no way to eat a Beautiful Mess v4.0 without making a beautiful mess of it. But what joy to smoosh your burger to make it fit.

At some point you can't tell where the meat ends and where the juice-soaked buns or egg bits begin. You'll know where to find the mushroom, though. If you're eating it fresh, it's the scalding hot bit somewhere near the top- darn, ate a bit of wax paper.

- SHADDUP ABITOFWAXPAPER WON'T KILL YOU EATAFRY DIP IT IN THE MAGIC RED SAUCE OHHELPME CAN'TSTOP OMG WHYSOGOOD -

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the simple yet mind-blowing genius in the herbed fries.

- MUSTBETHEHERBS PUNGENT PULCHRITUDINOUS HERBS YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT HERRRBS RIGHT HEEHEEHEE -

How ironic it would be if myBurgerLab ended up being more famous for its fries.

- WHOCARES FRIES ARE AWESOME DIVINE SKINS ON MORE FLAVOUR OHYES WHAT FRIES ALMOST GONE NONONO WHYYY -

With the last of the burger gone, I tipped the wrapper and down went a mix of melted cheese, meat juice, sauces, yolk and grease.

I can see why Melody's friends were wild about this place. They're cooking up some interesting combinations in this burger lab of sorts. You can't let go of the tastes. All they need is to stock some artisanal ice cream from The Last Polka and McDonald's will be in trouble.

Lumping a burger into a set - with a drink and fries - can take the bill past RM20, but it's worth it.

Just go easy on the fries. Oil, salt, glycaemic index and all that.

- AND HERBS LOVELY HERBS HEEHEEHEE COMEBACKTOMORROW OMG ♪ I'D LIKE TO MAKE MYSELF BELIEEEEEEVE ♫ -

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myBurgerLab (SEA Park)

No 14, Jalan 21/22,
Seapark, Petaling Jaya,
Selangor

Pork-free

Tuesdays to Sundays, 5pm-10:30pm

Closed on Mondays

Facebook page

Adiós, Hugo

So, Hugo Chávez's (aka Mr Freeze's) long goodbye has come to an end. Seems the whole world is mourning his passing; half because it means one less gadfly poking at Uncle Sam's eye, while the other half bemoans the loss of a target for snarking, object of loathing, and less-colourful headlines.

Those who 'like' him because he's a 'socialist' and hates the US, Britain, et al are missing the point. Because some people are paying a heavy toll so that he can call Bush Jr 'a devil' in a UN General Assembly, among other nutty stuff. I found him too weird for admiration, like that Turkmenbashi fellow. He's also too easy to hate, and I have better things to do.

Don't worry, because the caretaker of Hugo I's kingdom is striving to fill his late liege's shoes. And his credentials are notable, which includes former bus driver, Sai Baba follower and conspiracy theorist (emphasis mine):

...Hours before Chavez's death, Maduro accused "imperialist" enemies of infecting Chavez with cancer - the kind of headline-grabbing allegations against powerful foes that Chavez often used to whip up supporters during his 14 years of tumultuous rule.

He'll do just fine. And with friends like this, he'll do even better.

But a national security lawyer from one such "imperialist" country denies that bit because, well, "logic" (emphasis mine - do I have to do this? It's tiring):

"It's just not effective ... While some cancers can be intentionally induced, they take years to kill you. If an intelligence agency wants you dead, it wants you dead now so that you'll stop doing whatever it is that you're doing that makes them need to kill you."

That's the idea, I think. But now it seems the cancer he had didn't swing the scythe - and was only one of several ailments plaguing him till the end.

RIP Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's President for Ever.

08/03/2013: And Venezuela apparently agrees with me. If they follow through with this, will they build a pyramid for him next?

News: Everything's A Critic, Etc

Jon Methven's novel This Is Your Captain Speaking was 'reviewed' on Amazon by one of its characters, a "Passenger 12B": "Far be it for me to point out that I almost died on that plane. There I was, pinned to the fuselage's ceiling, wondering if I would ever see my kids again. Then we all discovered it was a ruse, and there was much rejoicing. Then we discovered Mr. Methven, who dreamed up our hellish descent and was writing a crap novel about it."

Everybody and everything, it seems can now be a critic. Will some of Nigella or Jamie's dishes start telling their authors what they really think of all that double cream or those "knobs o' butter"? Or will Hanuman in various adaptations of the Ramayana comment on their spoken 21st century lines? "Verily, honoured scribe, I do not speaketh so."

The mind boggles at the possibilities.


Elsewhere:

• Nook suffers an over 20 per cent drop in business, not long after Barnes & Noble's founder, chairman and largest stockholder, Leonard Riggio, announced his intent to buy the company's retail business, but not the digital end of B&N.
• Do you really own the e-books you download or 'buy'?
• 'Trusted friends', word of mouth and book clubs ranked top three book discovery tools. Goodreads appears to be growing as a go-to for book recommendation. Amazon reviews? Not so much.
• Homer's Iliad was written around the eighth century BC, according to geneticists.
• Jonah Lehrer's other book, How We Decide, is being yanked from the shelves by publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who also plans to refund customers who bought copies. Apparently, they found a boo-boo in that book.
• Your new Oxford English Dictionary entry of the week: "friend zone".
• Is it not chilling that some people don't know what 1M'sia book vouchers are for? Apart from, say, something to sell for money?
• The complete works of Shakespeare, now in Punjabi.
• Buying your way into the best-sellers' list? Probably not a good idea.
• International Herald Tribune to be renamed International New York Times. And how is the Times NOT international already?

Keep Calm And Read

I had something else to post, but something came up.

We're being invaded, of course, but that doesn't mean work on blogs, books and manuscripts have to stop.

On an unrelated note, a rescue mission of sorts took place on Friday at the distributors' side. One phone call and the editors in publishing and one or two colleagues were there in a flash.

My batch of rescued books. Will they all be read - preferably this year?

On staid Fridays, these rare phone calls from Distribution are a treat. We were like kids in a candy store.

Most are at least a year old and destined for pulping. Some could not be saved, including some Twilight-related publications (no huge loss there). But it's got me thinking.

Unfortunately, I didn't ask Distribution about any alternative recourse for to-be-pulped books. My understanding is that unsold items are written off and, when the time comes, are shipped off to their doom. Other than the annual warehouse sales, I don't know of any other ways (that don't involve money) to properly dispose of these books.

Now... how do I make time for these?

News: Mantel, Libraries And "Culinary Jingoism"

Okay, lots of things happened last week.

For one, Hilary Mantel brought up some royal bodies and got roasted by the UK media and some. Though some were offended by what she said about Kate Middleton, others have rallied around her and accused critics of quoting the offending passages out of context. Also, she's not the first stormraising essayist on the London Review of Books.

So far, however, Mantel has appeared fireproof. The media storm over her remarks has instead swept Mantel up Amazon's charts. The author who wrote of goings-on in the court of Henry VIII will still receive the Bodley Medal at the Oxford Literary Festival.

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Sci-fi writer and Internet phenomenon John Scalzi responds to the Horrible Historian's comments on libraries with his own personal history with libraries. Worth reading, because it reminds some of us about our own library experiences. Broke up the following excerpt because it was too long:

"I don’t use my local library like I used libraries when I was younger," he writes. "But I want my local library, in no small part because I recognize that I am fortunate not to need my local library — but others do, and my connection with humanity extends beyond the front door of my house.

"My life was indisputably improved because those before me decided to put those libraries there. It would be stupid and selfish and shortsighted of me to declare, after having wrung all I could from them, that they serve no further purpose, or that the times have changed so much that they are obsolete."

Take that.

While we're on the subject, someone asks if libraries are the next start-up incubators.


Elsewhere:

• Someone out there is hankering for the return of the illustrated book, because certain things being written these days are just begging "to be realized in ink."
• The Canadian French language police have 'allowed' restaurants to use Italian words such as "pasta" on menus. This issue reportedly arose when some restaurants were pursued by the Quebec Board of the French Language over the use of too many foreign words. An Italian restaurant in Montreal, for instance, got cited "for excessive use of Italian on its menu."
• Food writer Jason Sheehan finds out why some people take their food too seriously. He'd said something uncomplimentary about chicken rice in Singapore and some angry kiasu-types warned him "to never walk alone in that restaurant’s neighborhood again."
• An author pens an open letter to the shoplifter who stole a copy of his books.
• Women writers (often) get asked the darnedest questions during interviews. Of course, this piece wouldn't be complete without Hilary Mantel.
• The Librotraficante saga continues: the movement sets up an underground library.
• Ever wondered what some music albums would look like as book covers?
• Is the Internet reviving the short story? Not really.
• Crime writer Patricia Cornwell wins damages in a financial mismanagement case, which she blames entirely on the firm that managed her money. But it seems her alleged "taste for Ferraris, helicopters and a temporary apartment in New York City she rented for $40,000 per month", among other things, did not weigh much against her.
• Ben Yagoda on how to not write bad. One tip: "...the best writing has some of the qualities of conversation; and, in fact, my favorite short piece of writing advice is 'read it aloud.' When my students write—either in a scholarly, journalistic or essayistic mode—it’s almost as if they’re cowed, or intimidated, by the expectations they perceive. They end up writing stiffly and borderline pretentiously, using a fancy word like 'reside,' when the simpler 'live' is stronger and better."
• Literature and indie music - more in common than previously thought?
• A novelist and the tyranny of the word count.
• Reader's Digest files for Chapter 11 for the second time in less than four years.
• Is 'sick-lit' a symptom of an ill publishing industry?
• Today, video games are being blamed for certain social ills. Way back when, it was comic books. And it was supported with flawed findings.