What Happened to the Hippy Man?

WE DON'T NORMALLY review non-tax books but this is an exceptional true story from a well-known tax lecturer. Many readers will be used to the clear explanations laced with self-deprecating humour with which Mike makes even his specialism of VAT seem interesting. Now he narrates in the same style a gripping episode from his life twenty years ago when (as he puts it) he 'won the passport raffle' on board a hi-jacked Pan-Am aircraft in Karachi airport.

Starting with the death of his brother which brought him to Pakistan in the first place Mike tells the story of the boarding of his flight home before take-off by Palestinian terrorists from the Abu Nidal organisation on 5 September 1986.

Although he did not know it at the time the terrorists had already shot a hostage before telling one of the flight attendants to collect up...