Set in the late 1990s (which leaves the reader wondering why Desai chose the recent past instead of the near future for his time frame) the minute-by-minute action—which kaleidoscopically shifts from London, to Glasgow, to Vienna, to Belfast—takes place in one crowded day in the life of the suave, cynical, womanising Labour prime minister, Harry White. As Harry adroitly time-manages his acrobatic sex life, a looming crisis vis-a-vis Libya, the scheming of a political rival, and the arm-twisting of a blackmailing megalomaniacal American media magnate, the reader is carried along breathlessly to the explosive denouement in riot-torn Glasgow.
Though the author has put in a disclaimer that characters and events are fictional, if one looks squinty-eyed at them, some of the dramatis personae look tantalisingly familiar. This guess-who factor adds to the guess-what suspense.
Desai can take a bow for his fictive debut. Readers would want an encore.
