The day Benny Catchprice was fired from the spare-parts department of Catchprice Motors by his aunt Cathy, was also the day that tax inspector Maria Takis arrived to begin her overdue audit of the family business. From the author of Oscar and Lucinda which won the 1988 Booker Prize.

Peter Carey's novel is a fast-moving extravaganza, both funny and gripping, about a man who, recovering from death, is convinced that he is in hell.

The thesis presented here will not only change the way in which we understand contemporary Singaporean society and the relationship between the state and its citizens, but will also provoke a debate about the social costs of economic development in other parts of the world, and the future security of the island republic - increasingly a Chinese enclave in a Malay sea - in the twenty-first century.' - Peter Carey, Trinity College, Oxford This study examines the development of Singapore's complex system of social regulation in relation to the phases of its economic strategy and political...