Summary
17. August 1988, Pak One, the presidential plane in which Pakistani dictator General Zia was flying, along with several other top military figures, crashed and none of the passengers survived. Despite a long and thorough investigation, the causes of the accident were not revealed. Mohammed Hanif follows several clues to the assassination plot, including elements as diverse as a poison-bladed saber, poison gas, the curse of an offended first lady, and a crow that feasted on overripe mangoes.
This book has been compared by some to Catch 22, due to its hilarious mockery of the military and intelligence infrastructure, in this case Pakistan's. In his enchanting, anarchic, provocative and endlessly witty debut novel, Hanif takes as his theme an unsolved mysterious case that happened on the Indian subcontinent. Why did the Hercules C 130, the safest plane in the world, crash on August 17, 1988, killing Pakistan's military dictator Zia ul Haq?
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