Pizza 911

September 13, 2010
Hakeem Jinnah, the Vancouver Tribune's crusading crime reporter, investigates a bizarre beheading in Canadian author Hauka's amusing second Mister Jinnah mystery (after 2001's Mister Jinnah: Securities). The postmortem cuts on the cheeks of the teenage victim, Thad Golway, resemble the logo of the Yakshas, a Southern California drug cartel infiltrating British Columbia. Golway had been a member of the Millennial Magi ("MiMi") cult, the antics of whose leader, musician Lionel Simons, have already disrupted the local Indo-Canadian community. Even Saleem, Jinnah's impressionable 16-year-old son, is caught up in the MiMi excitement and their New Age outreach program. The disappearance of a potential eyewitness to Golway's murder, possibly orchestrated by sexy MiMi member Jassy Singh, leads Jinnah on a merry chase along with his archrival, snarky TV reporter Caitlin Bishop. An Ismaili Muslim with obsessive-compulsive quirks, Jinnah is one of the genre's more interesting crime solvers.