TOM DICK & HARRY: IS IT CLEAN

In Tom Dick & Harry: Is It Clean?, Pawan Bhatia delivers a scathing comic satire where three acronymic power blocs—TOM (military), DICK (finance), and HARRY (media)—collude to control the world through a "Global Laundromat" of shell companies and manufactured crises. The conspiracy pivots on Veridian, a Pacific island with a supposedly priceless mineral that DICKs Lord Sterling knows is worthless, yet fabricates a crisis to crash markets. When Mumbai accountant Arjun Sharma traces a 400-million-franc anomaly to a Geneva bakery selling three daily croissants, he exposes the entire scheme—landing himself framed, imprisoned, and hunted across continents.

Bhatias satire lampoons every institution: TOMs bumbling General Magnus brags of medals while his prosthetic leg squeaks louder with each lie; DICKs Sterling switches cufflinks to signal liquidation; HARRYs Cassandra Webb, whose vape color reveals her moods, weaponizes deepfakes and media manipulation. Their incompetence peaks in a failed Veridian heist, a chocolate factory drone strike, and a shootout where no one dies but all suits are ruined.

Arjuns unlikely ally is Scrubby, a philosophical janitor secretly leading a "cleaning consortium" that has documented the trios crimes for years. With Project Augeas—a bored British AI named Alfred—Scrubby helps Arjun unleash a "logic bomb" exposing the full ledger. The ensuing press conference disintegrates; Magnus is arrested, Sterlings assets frozen, Cassandras network collapses.

Bhatia insists this is fiction—no real individuals are named—but grounds it in documented money-laundering mechanisms (Panama Papers, Estonian banking scandals). The novel concludes not with tidy redemption but with Arjun and Priya founding a forensic consultancy, ready for the "next mess," while Scrubby retires his dented bucket after his eleventh cleanup.

Is It Clean? shares the investigative DNA of Bhatias climate book Restless Planet—both trace systemic failures, ignored warnings, and institutional capture. But where Restless Planet offers grim realism, this satire weaponizes laughter: the most subversive act is refusing to take villains seriously. The answer to its titular question remains ambiguous—the world is still filthy, but now, at least, were laughing at the filth.