From Amazon
Vain, lazy, and tenacious to a fault, Hakeem Jinnah makes his debut as an irresistible comic sleuth in Donald J. Huaka's
Mister Jinnah: Securities. "There is trial by judge, trial by jury... and trial by Jinnah," the jaded investigative newspaper reporter for the
Vancouver Province frequently boasts. But another catchphrase of his is more revealing: "I am perfectly aware that the Prophet says wine is the blood of Shaitan. Fortunately, the Quran is silent on the subject of scotch."
Jinnah is assigned to report on the death by car fire of a questionable stock promoter. Was it murder by a fleeced investor or an insurance-fraud suicide? He's furious that one of the Province's business reporters is also working the case. But having sunk his life's savings into a dubious get-rich-quick scheme--Orient Love Express, a matchmaking service for Russian women and wealthy Chinese men--with his bankruptcy-prone cousin, Jinnah doesn't exactly do his best work on the story. He's too preoccupied with Orient Love Express's impending IPO, until a murder charge threatens to ruin his career.
Mysteries set in British Columbia typically revel in the province's beauty, but Huaka seems far more interested in leaky condos than mountain scenery, even as Jinnah crosses the Rockies in his satellite-guided Love Machine minivan en route to Calgary to dig into the dead man's shady past. To find a match for Huaka's gonzo cynicism and gleefully unrepentant political incorrectness you'll have to travel farther afield, to Carl Hiaasen's sleazy Florida or the East Anglian romps of Jonathan Gash. --Deirdre Hanna
Review
"... one of this year's funniest debuts." (Charles Mandel
The Calgary Herald )
"... a lighthearted romp through the madcap mayhem of daily journalism." (M.R. Carroll )
