Bunker 13 - Softcover

Bahal, Aniruddha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0996235256 ISBN 13: 9780996235259

Publisher: Dunn Books, 2017

Synopsis

Minty Mehta, aka MM, is a thrill-seeker, a disgraced, self-destructive, ex-army cadet with a taste for hard drugs and kinky sex, and a shrewd reporter who will do anything to get a story. His connections reach deep into the heart of India’s unsavory political establishment, and into the army—his current beat—where his bravery earns the trust and admiration of even more unsavory sources.

Following Special Forces on a series of deadly missions on the Kashmiri border, MM confirms his suspicion that a rogue band of officers is smuggling drugs and captured weapons out of India’s jungle frontier. When a raid on an enemy bunker uncovers an enormous cache of arms and high-grade heroin, the commander in charge taps MM to unload the goods, and he finds himself enmeshed in an international net of gunrunning, gang warfare, and double-dealing more dangerous than anything he’s undertaken so far.

Cynical, knowing, highly capable and deeply motivated, MM is a postmodern hero in the same nihilistic vein as the protagonists of Hunter S. Thompson and Carl Hiaasen. The debut novel by the investigative journalist dubbed “The King of Sting” and “India’s most feared reporter” for his exposure of illegal arms dealing and other corruption in India, joins the ranks of world-class suspense authors with an insider’s look at the serpentine challenges of modern India.

 

About this title

About the Author:

ANIRUDDHA BAHAL is the founder and editor-in-chief of Cobrapost.com, India's first investigative non-profit news website. Cobrapost is renowned for its undercover exposés and has produced more than 100 investigative television documentaries on political corruption, corporate wrongdoing, genocide, communal politics, and the misuse of social media. Bahal, who was dubbed "The King of Sting" and "the most feared reporter in India" by The Independent, also co-founded investigative news website Tehelka in 2000. Previously, he worked for India Today, Down to Earth, Financial Express, and Outlook. He hosts the comedy program The Tony B Show on Channel V in India.

From Publishers Weekly:

Bahal, an investigative journalist from India, made headlines when he and his colleagues at Tehelka.com, an audacious Indian investigative news source, videotaped senior officials accepting bribes. To make the tapes, the reporters pretended to be rich businessmen. Bahal's first novel reads very much along these lines. His protagonist, MM, is a tough-as-nails ex-army officer turned investigative journalist with a penchant for risk, drugs and rough sex. Covering the army, MM learns that a small band of corrupt officers in Kashmir are engaged in smuggling drugs and weapons, and he soon becomes involved in an intricate web of guerrilla fighting, espionage, Russian mobsters and nuclear missiles. MM is a complex hero, a cynical and dissipated man who makes sentences such as "there's an art to drawing a gun" sound natural, but who is also principled. Some readers may grow weary of his relentless tough-guy posturing, but Bahal's use of the second person heightens suspense and adds psychological depth, and ample information about regional politics, warfare and journalism in India fills out the novel. The most serious problem is the awkward syntax, which considerably slows the pace ("You are in the mood for some luxury, and even though the hotel you have pitched camp in, bordering Dal Lake, isn't luxurious, it is better than the squatter mess settlements that the Western Command is most likely to put at your disposal"). Those who can get past the rough prose will find an offbeat, fun thriller.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dunn Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0996235256
• ISBN 13: 9780996235259
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 366