Unknown Terrorist

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A provocative thriller of a post-9/11 world, from the Commonwealth Writers’ Prizewinning author of Gould’s Book of Fish and The Sound of One Hand Clapping.

Gina Davies, a.k.a. “The Doll” is a 26- year-old pole dancer at the Chairman’s Lounge night club. She prefers the touch of money on her skin to the touch of a man. She knows her role in a world built on deceptionthe dancers pretending to be excited, the men pretending that the women aren’t pretending. But on the night of Mardi Gras 2007, right after three unexploded bombs are discovered at a local stadium, The Doll meets up with a darkly handsome stranger for a night of drugs and sex at his apartment. The next day, the man is identified as an international terrorist, and she as his accomplice, both spied in a security video going into his building. And suddenly her world of small, familiar deceptions implodes into one where lies are out to destroy her.

A novel unlike anything acclaimed author Richard Flanagan has ever written, The Unknown Terrorist is as compelling as a top-notch thriller, at the same time driven by the provocative questions we should all be asking in our poisoned post-9/11 atmosphere. Why is it that our truths are now cloaked in falsehoods? How is it that money, possessions and power have become our new moral guideposts? And why is it that the media we count on to expose untruths have become part of the machine of their propagation?

The Unknown Terrorist marks the first time the internationally acclaimed Richard Flanagan has been published in Canada. It is a profoundly affecting and timely debut.