The book is a Force 12 hurricane, dropping only to a 10 gale now and then, for it sweeps one along breathlessly from incident to incident, place to place, name to name. From the arresting prologue itself, the book is brutally honest, exhilarating and even self-deprecating. It is a story that most of Young India must read, for it provides an incredible ring-side view to critical events in the 1980s and 90s that shaped the destiny of the nation. The author’s subsequent credentials as a military history writer, his earlier works and his vast exposure to virtually every part of the subcontinent, place him in a unique position to paint scenario after scenario where the reader is completely mesmerised by the cinematic unfolding of events. Which genre does this book fit into? This autobiography, however, doesn’t depend on his earlier works for its literary place: it is sui generis, defiant of classification. The nearest one can come to is to call it a thriller in the garb of a life story in the first person - for it is Shiv Kunal’s life story. And it reads like a thriller because it is incredible; the more so, because it is wholly true. His being the son of a distinguished general from a famous regiment may have helped, but not all army brats, however exalted, have this devil’s own luck. It is the kind of life most only dream of, and very few (if any) have the good fortune to live and write about.
