Heat-busters

Since there can’t be a better substitute to thrillers when it comes to spicing up vacations,Random House has The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. It has portly detective Vish Puri delving into investigation when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant. With his team of undercover operatives— Tubelight,Flush and Facecrea— Puri ingeniously combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than 2,000 years ago. Author Tahir Shah calls Puri “the most original detective in years”. “Picture Hercule Poirot with an Indian accent,eating chilli pakoras and riding in an auto-rickshaw,” he adds.

However,for those looking for some thrilling moments in international settings,Penguin is releasing Daniel Suarez’s Daemon soon. This hi-tech thriller set in the information age shows the collapsing boundaries between reality and cyberspace. A programming genius is dead but his final creation lives on to execute his last will and testament. This is a must-read for those who lap up Michael Crichton’s fiction.

This season,master storyteller Mario Puzo’s page-turner Six Graves to Munich—which was published under the pseudonym Mario Cleri and was written a year before he completed The Godfather— makes its debut in the Indian market. The novel,which was brought to light very recently,takes the reader to the final days of the World War II. An American intelligence officer is tortured by a group of Gestapo officers share a secret. A decade later,he returns to track and kill his tormentors one by one.

A two-decade-old secret haunts four school friends in Secrets and Lies—with a cover reminiscent of Sex and the City poster. Jaishree Misra shifts the actions to the early ’90’s Delhi. Four friends reuniting after 15 years to realise that they can’t run away from their past. They are forced to confront the fact that Lily—a newcomer who threatened their superiority — was found dead on the night of their school prom. For 20 years,the open verdict has shielded the fact that the four friends may have had a hand in her death.

Dead on Time—Meghnad Desai’s first novel published by Penguin — has all the trappings of becoming a major summer release when it hits the stands in June. The economist is already showered with praises for offering “a delightful mix of action,humour and realpolitik”. Author Ruth Rendell says,“Dead on Time is a compelling read — a treat for political aficionados,an eye-opener and a shock for the innocent.”

Some readers might just long to go for the tried and tested. For them,Random House has launched Summer Paperbacks. Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth is released with a new cover along with Mohammad Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes,Moni Mohsin’s The Diary of a Social Butterfly and John Grisham’s The Associate.