The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan

The Doll is a pole dancer working in a sleazy strip joint in the Cross area of Sydney.

This isn’t the most interesting pretext to involve a reader in what turns out to be one or the more interesting and unusual thrillers of recent years.

The fact that The Doll or Gina Davies to giver her her real name is a pole dancer gives good reason to think she is a shallow person who uses her body to make a living and in so doing so perpetuates male fantasies.

Fortunately, this book is so much than that. It is more about the modern media establishment and the way that the establishment is dealing ongoing issues involving the ‘terrorist threat’.

Gina has the misfortune to spend a night with Tariq, who becomes a terrorist suspect involved in planting suspect devices in the Olympic stadium. As it happens, he probably isn’t a terrorist and is just a small time drug mule who gets killed for his troubles half way through the book.

Unfortunately, Gina gets caught on CCTV in the company of Tariq and is identified by a TV hack called Richard Cody. This may be his revenge at her treatment of him in the strip club but his TV special is more about resurrecting his career than trying to catch a bona fide terrorist.

Gina leaves it too late to turn herself in and runs around Sydney while her back story is filled in and we learn where she has come from. Slowly, her bolt holes run out and she is left with one option….

The Unknown Terrorist is a chilling, worrying tale about the power of the modern media and the way government is dealing with terrorism issues.

Flanagan has crafted a well written book with a good case of supporting characters who are developed well enough but not so that they detract with the main tale about the Doll.