A Case of Exploding Mangoes

Starred review from February 18, 2008
Pakistan's ongoing political turmoil adds a piquant edge to this fact-based farce spun from the mysterious 1988 plane crash that killed General Zia, the dictator who toppled Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto. Two parallel assassination plots converge in Hanif's darkly comic debut: Air Force Junior Under Officer Ali Shigri, sure that his renowned military father's alleged suicide was actually a murder, hopes to kill Zia, who he holds responsible. Meanwhile, disgruntled Zia underlings scheme to release poison gas into the ventilation system of the general's plane. Supporting characters include Bannon, a hash-smoking CIA officer posing as an American drill instructor; Obaid, Shigri's Rilke-reading, perfume-wearing barracks pal, whose friendship sometimes segues into sex; and, in a foreboding cameo, a “lanky man with a flowing beard,” identified as OBL, who is among the guests at a Felliniesque party at the American ambassador's residence. The Pakistan-born author served in his nation's air force for several years, which adds daffy verisimilitude to his depiction of military foibles that recalls the satirical wallop of Catch 22
, as well as some heft to the sagely absurd depiction of his homeland's history of political conspiracies and corruption.

March 15, 2008
Set in Pakistan in the 1980s, this first novel revolves around the events leading up to the plane crash that killed General Zia, then president of the country. The crash has been the subject of all sorts of rumors, and the author energetically seizes upon them and adds several of his own. The novel centers on Ali Shigri, a junior under officer in the Pakistani air force and son of a high-ranking commander who apparently committed suicide years earlier but whose death is beginning to look more like a political execution. When General Zia comes upon a passage in the Qur'an that he thinks foretells his death, he expands his already severe dictatorship by calling for heightened security. Shigri is taken into custody and given the full interrogation treatment but is eventually released. He then prepares for a demonstration of a military drill with his squad in front of the president himself. In keeping with the novel's somewhat surrealistic approach, a crow that has overheard a blind woman curse the president has flown several thousand miles to intersect with the flight route of the presidential party. Entertainingly bizarre and still seriously literate, this novel is recommended for larger fiction collections.Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2008
It is 1988, and Pakistans military government is flush with success. Its coffers are full of U.S. weapons and American dollars, CIA agents are everywhere, and the Russians are beginning to withdraw from Afghanistan. Military strongman General Zia ul Huk is the darling of CIA director Bill Casey, and Pakistan; Air Force underofficer Ali Shigri, a young man of good family, is plotting to assassinate Zia. Shigri has just learned that Zia and his deputies are responsible for the suicide of his father, the much-respected Colonel Shigri. Ali comes under suspicion by the countrys dreaded ISI (Interservices Intelligence), and a painful end seems preordained. First-novelist Hanif, who spent seven years in the Pakistani Air Force and currently runs the Urdu service for the BBC, has crafted a clever black comedy about military culture, love, tyranny, family, and the events that eventually brought us to September 11, 2001. His depictions of Zia, Pakistani military life, the machinations of Pakistani military pols, and CIA cowboys are believable and convincingly detailed. Other elements of the book are purely fanciful, but they also work. Entertaining and illuminating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)