Travels for Armchair Detectives

What with the recent blizzard and subsequent cold snap, most people prefer to be indoors this time of year. If you like mysteries and are fantasizing about being somewhere warm and exotic, never fear: the Scandinavians haven't cornered the market on mysteries in foreign lands.

Tarquin Hall writes a charming series set in New Delhi, India. Vish (sounds like wish) Puri (Urdu for granted) runs Most Private Investigations. While priding himself on his modern techniques and outlook, he is a bit conservative in certain respects, including his hard and fast rule that mummies do not solve mysteries. His mother proves him wrong on more than one occasion, but this doesn't seem to affect his high opinion of his own abilities, which are not lacking. While the cadence and grammar of Indian English may take a little getting used to, the dialog is one of the charms of this series, starting with The Case of the Missing Servant. In this tale, Puri must investigate a disappearance that turns into a murder investigation with his client as the chief suspect. Using operatives with codenames like Facecream and Tubelight as well as going undercover himself, Puri gets his man. The latest, The Case of the Love Commandos, has Puri mixed up in a "love marriage" plot that seems to make only the couple happy. Appeal: well-drawn characters, subtle humor, and copious atmosphere.

Colin Cotterill's excellent series set in Thailand and featuring the intrepid Jimm Juree (ambitious journalist and reluctant good daughter) has been blogged about elsewhere by me. Today I will focus on his earlier work, the Dr. Paiboun novels. Elderly Siri Paiboun is pretty much the last doctor left in Laos after the Communists take over in 1975. This means he is appointed coroner for the entire country after a politburo member's wife drops dead in public. Then the bodies of some Vietnamese show up in a river, apparently tortured and threatening an international incident. Much against his will and better judgment, Dr. Paiboun is on the case with a cast of underlings as unexpected and effective as any out there. And that's just The Coroner's Lunch, the first in the series. Appeal: political satire, atmosphere, and characters you care about.

Of course, there's always The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which put mysteries in the global South on the map. In case you've been under a rock or not watched the HBO series, also called The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Precious Ramotswe solves minor mysteries in Botswana. There's other low-grade drama, whether with her adopted children or the men next door at the auto repair shop, including the kind J.L.B. Matekoni, whom she eventually marries. Like with Hall's books, the dialect of English used is charming. Appeal: gentle read, sympathetic characters, and a loving description of Africa and her people.

Feeling warmer yet? Brain a little less fuzzy? No? Then travel on down to your local library, pick up a book from one of these series and prepare to be delighted.