Bunker 13

About the book

Minty Mehta (aka MM) likes to play dangerously. When shooting a documentary in Kashmir about the Indian army and their conflict with the Pakistanis, he likes to indulge in a spot of parachute jumping with Major Rodriguez, doubling the thrill with a snort of amphetamine or Lady-H on the way down. Even when a Sikh officer dies on a jump it doesn't deter them from their headlong pursuit of hedonism; but it soon becomes clear MM doesn't really trust Rodriguez, for reasons that will become apparent after a raid on a village which offers shelter to the rebels. At Bunker 13 a massacre of civilians occurs along with the quarry but what lands in the Indian officers' possession is some very re-saleable military hardware and 100kg of the finest grade heroin you can find. Using his cover as the editor of a major Indian news magazine - to say nothing of his plentiful charm - MM orchestrates a deadly game of quadruple cross with some very violent Azerbaijanis, Sikhs, the Indian Secret Service and the Army. What he hasn't accounted for is the effect his affair with his boss's daughter will have on his complicated twilight life and even his identity. Slick, fast, cynical and gripping, Bunker 13 races towards a climax unmatched in recent fiction in prose that is as intoxicating as it is supple. Its depiction of a world riddled with political corruption and violence - all coloured with irresistible pursuit of his hedonistic impulses - is daring, invigorating, and without comparison.