Stop the Presses!Hakeem Jinnah
Created by
Don Hauka
HAKEEM JINNAH
is an Indo-Canadian reporter working the crime beat for The
Vancouver Tribune. He's smug, pushy, and even occasionally
neurotic. His publisher would gladly can him in an instant, except
for the fact that Jinnah's prying and scruple-free sensationalism
get results, and sell a lot of papers. Like his Scotch swilling
editor says (she should really be called "Crusty"),
"He's a tabloid reporter trapped in a broadsheet." His
partner, Roger, just calls him "shameless."
He may have a long-suffering wife and a brooding teenage son at home, but Jinnah's an inveterate flirt, and a conniver and carouser of the first degree, prowling through the streets of Vancouver, looking for love in all the wrong places, or a get-rich-quick scheme (marrying off Russian peasant women to wealthy Chinese men or opening a chain of fast-food joints in Africa) that actually pans out.
In the meantime, while he waits for his ship to come in, he counts on his cop buddy, Sgt. Graham to keep him posted on the world of crime. He also has to keep an eye out for the latest competition on the scene -- the slick and sexy Caitlin Bishop, a TV reporter with even fewer scruples than he has.
So popular was Mister Jinnah: Securities, the first book in the series, that the CBC, ever on the eye for material that shows off Canada's multiculturalism, soon snapped it up. Okay, so Jinnah just happens to be also hopelessly, gloriously politically incorrect -- it's the thought that counts, right? In Pizza 911 (the first in a proposed string of Jinnah movies), charred human remains are found in a pizza oven, and the police enlist Jinnah's assistance. Jinnah is played with great spirit by Dhirendra -- a semi-retired British actor (best known for his work on the popular British series East Enders)-turned-Windsor, Ontario restaurateur who, like Jinnah, uses only one name. "I knew that I had to do it for many reasons," Dhirendra says of being offered the role. "This film has a great deal of humanity, and heroes who aren't determined by skin colour."
Jinnah was created by Vancouver Province political writer Don Hauka, who based the character on his colleague, award-winning Salim Jiwa, who's specialized in investigating and reporting on crime and terrorism since 1983, and is himself the author of the acclaimed Death of Air India Flight 182 (for which Hauka served as story editor).
Hauka's own writing goes far beyond journalism. He wrote Count The Days: The 1990 Bill Vander Zalm Scandal Notebook (1990), about the corruption-plagued premier of British Columbia and is currently working on McGowan's War, about a colourful time in British Columbian history when pistol-packing Yankees tried to grab the territory. He's also written a series of dramatic and comedic plays for CBC Radio. He's taken a leave of absence work on more episodes of the series, as well as another Jinnah book.
UNDER OATH
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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
