Rekha and her friends race against time to save Tiger Isle and its 30 million people from annihilation even as evil and corrupt President Kapalin and his mentor, ex-President Bhairav, push the divided nation to the brink of World War III and Armageddon.Here is a peerless debut study and exposition on corruption in the shadowy corridors of business and dictatorial governments posing as democracies in South East Asia, written with great wit, humor and satire.

Tiger Isle or Pulipore, the corruption capital of the world that mysteriously emerged from the depths of the waters of South East Asia in 200 CE, spiral towards its tipping point in 2012. Hundreds of billions of dollars of cost over-inflated defense and other government procurement and infrastructure development contracts, national projects “that MUST not fail, ever” and the cosy “win-win” relationship between government and fraudtrepreneur crony “corporat captains of industry”, send Tiger Isle hurtling towards the precipice of third world status and bankruptcy. Tiger Isle’s evil and despotic President Kapalin plays every card, from race to Tigerist religion to hounding his political nemesis, Maitreya, with trumped-up rape and sodomy charges, to cling on to power. Failure is not an option, as he and his ambitious and self-promoting wife, Natasha, are also implicated in the cover-up of the gruesome murder of Tiger Isle’s Oscar-winning actress, dynamited to bits in a secluded forest. Now, government auditor Rekha and her seven best friends race against time and the threat of a prophecy being fulfilled to save Tiger Isle and its 30 million inhabitants from annihilation, even as Kapalin plots and embarks upon apocalyptic plans that could prove to be the harbinger of World War III. On the horizon, Rekha, married and a mother of two, sees the looming menace and racist aims of Kapalin’s mentor, bitter ex-President Bhairav, who stirs p extremist and right-wing Tigerist sentiments to undermine Kapalin and replace him with his own son as President. The fate of a nation hangs in the balance as Rekha prepares for battle with her famous cry of “we are all of One Race, the Human Race”. Mixing suspense with humor and pathos, E.S. Shankar’s marvellous written, original and stunning debut novel “TIGER ISLE – A GOVERNMENT OF THIEVES” is a classic story of endemic corruption in South East Asia and its racial, multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural democratic.

COP: “Buddy, I think this is a whorehouse.” BUDDY CIANCI: “Now I know why they made you a detective.” Welcome to Providence, Rhode Island, where corruption is entertainment and Mayor Buddy Cianci presided over the longest-running lounge act in American politics. In The Prince of Providence, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Mike Stanton tells a classic story of wiseguys, feds, and politicians on a carousel of crime and redemption. Buddy Cianci was part urban visionary, part Tony Soprano—a flawed political genius in the mold of Huey Long and James Michael Curley. His lust for power cost him his marriage, his family, and close friendships. Yet he also revitalized the city of Providence, where ethnic factions jostle with old-moneyed New Englanders and black-clad artists from the Rhode Island School of Design rub shoulders with scam artists from City Hall. For nearly a quarter of a century, Cianci dominated this uneasy melting pot. During his first administration, twenty-two political insiders were convicted of corruption. In 1984, Cianci resigned after pleading guilty to felony assault, for torturing a man he suspected of sleeping with his estranged wife. In 1990, in a remarkable comeback, Cianci was elected mayor once again; he went on to win national acclaim for transforming a dying industrial city into a trendy arts and tourism mecca. But in 2001, a federal corruption probe dubbed Operation Plunder Dome threatened to bring the curtain down on Cianci once and for all. Mike Stanton takes readers on a remarkable journey through the underside of city life, into the bizarre world of the mayor and his supporting cast, including: • “Buckles” Melise, the city official in charge of vermin control, who bought Providence twice as much rat poison as the city of Cleveland, which was at the time four times as large, and wound up increasing Providence’s rat population. During a garbage strike, Buckles sledgehammered one city employee and stuck his thumb in another’s eye. Cianci would later describe this as “great public policy.” • Anthony “the Saint” St. Laurent, a major Rhode Island bookmaker and loan shark, who tried to avoid prison by citing his medical need for forty bowel irrigations a day, thus earning himself the nickname “Public Enema Number One.” • Dennis Aiken, a celebrated FBI agent and public corruption expert, who asked to be sent to “the Louisiana of the North,” where he enlisted an undercover businessman to expose the corrupt secrets of Cianci’s City Hall. The Prince of Providence is a colorful and engrossing account of one of the most tragicomic figures in modern American life—and the city he transformed.

C.1, GENERAL FUNDS, SAM'S, 3/23/2010, $12.99.