Ganja Coast [Mass Market Paperback]

Paul Mann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1995

"MANN'S INDIA GRABS YOU BY THE THROAT. . . .Sansi, an ex-cop turned lawyer, is complex and compelling."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
Even Goa, a sleepy beach community along India's "Ganja" coast, cannot escape the creeping reach of corruption. As voracious developers gear up to turn Goa into a moneymaking machine, lawyer George Sansi is pressured to dig up evidence on the man who stands to steal the most: the Minister for Economic Development, Rajiv Banerjee. Most of the burned-out inhabitants of Goa seem blissfully unaware of the coming changes--until the strangled body of a child is found floating in the waves, shattering even the aging Western hippies' view of Goa as an innocent paradise.
With his American lover, newspaper reporter Annie Ginnaro, Sansi sets out for a luxurious Goan resort, where he and Annie will pretend to enjoy a much needed rest. But relaxing is the last thing they will do, as they hack their way through a tangled jungle of Western dropouts, drugs, money, and murder that has overgrown around the last refuge of pleasure in India....
"[MANN] SETS ASTOUNDINGLY VIVID SCENES OF A DECADENT CITY in the throes of life, the better to draw sharp, grim portraits of characters flirting with bizarre forms of death."
--The New York Times Book Review
"CHILLING. . .TRULY SHOCKING. . .An intriguing look at another culture--one where the best and the worst of East and West meet."
--San Francisco Examiner

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tough to put down, this engrossing follow-up to Season of the Monsoon (1993), brings back half-Indian, half-English George Sansi, newly retired from the Bombay police. Sansi is tapped by his former boss, Narendra Jamal, for some undercover sleuthing around the city of Goa, where plans for a free port have shifted greed and crime into high gear. Jamal hopes to bring down a corrupt, high-ranking minister through his links to the dealings of Prem Gupta, who manages the minister's illegal business (and Goa's government). Using a vacation with Annie Ginnaro, his California-born lover who writes for the Times of India, as a cover, Sansi soon finds that one of Jamal's contacts has fled town and that the other, a former police pathologist disturbed by the suspicious death of a nine-year-old American girl, is afraid to help. "There is no law here," he warns. While Sansi stakes out Gupta, Ginnaro makes friends among the area's transplanted American hippies, who are now in the way of Goa's development. Sansi's blue eyes are more distinctive than his personality and Ginnaro is often more irritating than spirited, but Mann sketches the character of "the most corrupt society on earth" with enthusiasm and detail, delivering his imaginative, unpredictable tale with nearly irresistible style.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In his second George Sansi mystery (the first was Season of the Monsoon ), Mann evokes India's peculiar mix of fatalism, corruption, and desperation with skill and wicked wit. This time around Sansi, a handsome man who inherited blue eyes from his British father and creamy brown skin and dark hair from his Indian mother, has left the police force to practice law, but his old boss calls him back to the fold. It seems that plans for a free port in the coastal state of Goa have started a turf war among various factions engaged in illicit ventures. The region is called the Ganja Coast because of the seemingly unlimited supply of drugs available to the hordes of American and European hippies who live along the vast beaches. Life is lazy, cheap, and hedonistic until greed turns lethal and a young girl is murdered. As Sansi, posing as a tourist, investigates, both he and his American journalist girlfriend find themselves in the thick of things. More than a clever and macabre tale of drug smuggling and betrayal, Mann's novel captures the paradoxical nature of life in modern India. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Fawcett (December 30, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804114196
• ISBN-13: 978-0804114196
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,946,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Mann was born in the northeast of England, the only son of a police constable and a nurse. After a career as an itinerant journalist working in several different countries he settled in smalltown Maine. He is the author of several techno-thrillers, including 'The Britannia Contract,' and the George Sansi murder mystery series set in India, including 'Season Of The Monsoon.' After a 15 year digression he has resumed writing and has two new books on Kindle, 'The Witch's Code,' his first foray into supernatural mystery writing, and 'The Leek Club' a semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in the coalfields of East Northumberland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The best mystery I've read in many a year, August 21, 1997

By 

William Sugarman "nprfan1" (Great Neck, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ganja Coast (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a better book than Mann's first Sansi mystery ("Season of the Monsoon"), and I loved that book as well. As soon as you open the book and start reading it, you feel as though you are actually in India - Mann's descriptive powers, both of people and places, are that good. And, as with "Season", the violence is mostly implied, and yet you cringe at it just the same (it's implied except for the scenes with the swami and the cobra, and I REALLY cringed at that). My only complaint with the book was with the character of Annie Ginnaro. Because a major part of the book deals with expatriated American hippies, her role is a necessary one, but somehow, she still seems out of place to me. A lot of Mann's story seems stilted when Annie is involved. But I'm still anxiously awaiting the third Sansi mystery, which is currently available in hardcover

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How many mysteries have you read that are set in Goa?, July 7, 1997

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ganja Coast (Mass Market Paperback)

By the time you careen through the plot of the Ganja Coast, you'll know more than you may want to know about the corruption of Indian politics, the bribe-ability of the police, the plenitude of available drugs, and the cheap price of human life.

Paul Mann's Ganja Coast features George Sansi, an Anglo-Indian lawyer/police inspector who tries to defeat the efforts of the Minister for Economic Development, Rajiv Banerjee, to gain so much financial power that he can blackmail members of the cabinet into appointing him to greater political power. Sansi "vacations" in Goa with his American newspaper reporter girlfriend, Annie Ginnaro, whose observations provide Sansi with an opportunity to explain political machinations indirectly to an audience of readers unfamiliar with Indian politics.

Members of the cabinet, with Banerjee's help, are buying up large tracts of land along the Goa coast prior to its being named a free port and developed into a major tourist destination. The coast is presently inhabited primarily by ex-patriate former hippies heavily into the drug scene, which is controlled by Rajiv Banerjee. As the political and drug worlds collide with substantial loss of life, Sansi the investigator illustrates what is good about India and its people

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars india, July 20, 2010

By 

fredina hashim "reader nerd" (washington d.c. area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ganja Coast (George Sansi) (Paperback)

I found the george sansi books engrossing and informative,the characters are very human and one likes them and wants to know them better.I am unable to find any more sansi novels other than the three I have.What happened to mr. Mann?Did he stop writing?I would love to find any further books in this series if they exist,Help!!!