Fast forward to World War III

BBC correspondent Humphrey Hawksley adds another novel — the third in a span of six years — to his "future histories" series with The Third World War. And, as in the case of its predecessor — Dragon Fire — Hawksley has chosen to do a solo yet again after teaming up with Simon Holberton to write the first in the series, Dragon Strike.

Ominously, again, the sub-continent is in the thick of it all. The novel actually opens at the Indian Prime Minister's residence on Race Course Road and before the chapter is wrapped up, Parliament has come under a terrorist attack. Triggered by 9/11 and written during the build-up to the U.S./U.K. military action on Iraq and mounting tensions between America and North Korea, Hawksley weaves into his story — set in the future — most of the recent flashpoints the world has seen, and, of course, the lone superpower's obsession with "pre-emptive strikes".

Not at all comforting for the world in general and India in particular given that some of the predictions Hawksley and Holberton made in Dragon Strike became a reality after its publication. This is what gives the author reason to claim: "What was fiction one day became historical fact the next". Fortunately, the narrator survives the Third World War — one fought with nuclear weapons — to tell the tale!

The Third World War, Humphrey Hawksley, Pan, £3.25 (special Indian price).

ANITA JOSHUA

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