The Unknown Terrorist, By Richard Flanagan

In the ignorant, materialistic, casually racist 27-year-old Australian stripper Gina Davis – sometimes called Krystal, more commonly known simply as the Doll – Richard Flanagan's fourth novel has one of recent fiction's less immediately likeable heroines. Many of its other characters are downright loathsome, none more so than her antagonist, Richard Cody, a television journalist so puffed up with certitude and a sense of his own importance that he simply hasn't the space left in him for any morals.

The action begins after the Doll enjoys a one night stand with a middle eastern computer programmer, Tariq. The following day comes the news that three unexploded bombs were found at one of Sydney's sports stadiums, and the TV keeps showing a grainy CCTV clip of Tariq and the Doll entering his apartment building. Tariq is a suspect, and now the Doll has a new name: the Unknown Terrorist. Richard Cody, who frequents her strip club and recognises her in the footage, gets to work on a report that will expose her and make her public enemy number one. If he stops to consider that there might be an innocent explanation, or to ponder why an Islamic fundamentalist would be working as a stripper, it isn't for long enough to get in the way of his getting a scoop. The Doll, though, is forced to reassess all of her lazily held assumptions, now that she realises the whole city is making similar ones about her.

In the guise of a propulsive thriller, The Unknown Terrorist is actually a bitter and angry satirical swipe at the politics, peddling and consumption of fear in the post-9/11 world. Being satire, its reality is somewhat heightened, to the detriment of its effectiveness as a thriller. But that is compensated for by the slick mechanics of the plot, the laser precision of the prose, and the sense that this might just be the book that best describes the grim, sad farce that is our times.