Fiction. The first-ever Donald Trump novel! The United States and Bangistan, a former Soviet satellite dictatorship, are edging towards nuclear conflict. At any moment, their war of words, insults and threats may escalate into an exchange of missiles and an apocalypse. In the White House, President Ronald Rump hesitates between negotiating a peace agreement and employing the full might of the American war machine, as the hawks around him advise that, rather than talk, he should wipe Bangistan off the world map. In the Presidential Palace of Petrobangorski, Great Leader Hakim Akim meanwhile ruminates on the advantages he might draw from the conflict. The world holds its breath as a last-ditch face-to-face meeting between Rump and Akim is finally announced to resolve the crisis. Can the US President clinch the deal, denuke Bangistan, and bring in a new era of peace? Or will Rump, deaf to all advice, abandon the talks in a fit of anger and order the military to raze the Bangistan capital? The hour is grave and the risk perhaps too great to leave to a roll of the dice...A small band of diplomats, politicians and spy agencies from the US and its allied nations, aided by several unwitting French peasants, believes so, and secretly plots to make sure Rump is never put to the test. The Zucchini Conspiracy is born... "'the first-ever Donald Trump novel' ... a free-wheeling farce, a three-ring circus ... politically pointed ... burlesque ... supremely silly and cheerful--think Kingsley Amis with all the black bile drained out ... moving quickly, amiably, wittily ... a fizzy romp with an inspired bit of slapstick near the end."-- "This book is a masterpiece of hilarious and delightful nonsense. What kind of mischievous mind can conjure up, for a doppelganger of Donald Trump, a fat peasant woman who only speaks an obscure dialect from the South of France? What kind of ingenious intelligence can devise a plot where such a double can carry off a plot to deceive a foreign power in critical nuclear disarmament negotiations? Answer: the kind that belongs to author Timothy Balding. What credible explanation could there be, for instance, that would place a pyjama-clad British Prime Minister called Theresa in the bedroom of the US president with a knotted rope in her hand? None that I can think of. But never mind, suspend your disbelief and embark on a roller coaster of laughs and chuckles that will keep the pages turning until the end of the book. But, of course, as always with Timothy, there is a serious underbelly to this political farce. The author takes an incisive scalpel to the municipal politics of rural France and the intrigues and ambitions of diplomats and politicians. Then he heaves a huge axe through the inflated ego of the current US president. The result is a book that everyone but the most fervent Trump followers will love. Outstanding fun. Don't miss it."-- "Timothy has taught us so much in his previous books--he has taught us 'how to think'. In particular--how to think 'backward'--to make sense of that what we know, but that's the easier part. He tells us a story so mischievously trivial but so brutally profound. What he is teaching us now is how to think of the present and the future, how to think 'forward'. To look at the state of the world we live in and its downward spiral. Typically, Timothy would stop at that--with cynicism and a fantastic excuse for us to 'laugh it all away'. But this time--Timothy comes back with almost a religious zeal to show us that--the world could be a better place--and life could be a wonderful thing."--Stjepan Kra?un