No, make that since Robin Hudson, the protagonist in a series of New York adventures written by one-time Canuck Sparkle Hayter. Hayter is now a freelance journalist, who began her career with CNN, and began Hudson's career at an all-news television network, based in NYC instead of Atlanta. She seems to have been an influence on Jinnah-author Donald J. Hauka, who is a political reporter with the Vancouver Province, a newspaper that sounds very much like the Vancouver Tribune where Hakeem works the crime beat.

While Robin Hudson is forced to cover her saucy tail in constant rounds of office politics, most of her adventures involve catting about Manhattan with an outrageous collection of friends, acquaintances and villains. Jinnah is a flirt, cruising Vancouver in a satellite-guided Love Machine as he attempts to draw investors to a business scheme marrying Russian peasant women to wealthy Chinese men. He gets careless trying to balance these activities with an investigation made all the more dangerous because his newspaper managers have him competing with a business writer to cover the murder of a Vancouver stock promoter.

This puts Jinnah on a tour among characters associated with the volatile Vancouver and Calgary stock exchanges. The business types have the ring of authenticity: not half so interesting as they imagine themselves to be. That's not a problem for the book, however. Hakeem's conniving colleagues, his patient wife, his cowardly cousin, his machinating religious community, and Jinnah's politically incorrect, egotistical self, prove ample resources for amusement.

"A gentleman identifying himself as the president of the Orient Love Express called," continued Sanderson.
"Ah, cousin Sanjit," said Jinnah.
"The same cousin Sanjit who was living in your basement about six months ago?"
"He has risen considerably in the world since then."
"He said it was urgent."
"Nothing is as urgent as my need for quinine and nicotine right now."

Mister Jinnah: Securities is filled with exchanges like this. Haulka almost makes the book's bad guys stand-bys to the ongoing and entertaining accident that is Jinnah's life. What's not entertaining is the time Hauka takes.

Hayter can run through a criminal investigation, a corporate intrigue, a love interest, a perverse idiosyncrasy of New York life, and a slew of one-liners and comic similes in fewer than 250 pages. Hauka takes nearly twice as long to move Jinnah around Vancouver. Even with a side-trip to Calgary, the plot plods, especially when Jinnah is not on the scene. With less detailed over-telling, Mister Jinnah: Securities could, and should be a quick, amusing romp.

But hey, it's Hauka's first time in the kitchen. If he's for serving another Mister Jinnah mystery, I'd belly up. Only skip the mashed potatoes next time, please, and don't reduce the sauce.