THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST
Richard Flanagan
Grove Press
Thriller
ISBN-10: 0802118518
ISBN-13: 9780802118516

Richard Flanagan, as demonstrated by THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST, is a remarkable author. Just two pages into this work, he tells us precisely how it's going to end --- at the conclusion, no less, of a short dissertation tying Jesus and Nietzsche together and using love as a string. Thus he sets up a scenario that has the potential of turning off two large groups of folks and at the same time losing the browsing reader. No chance of the latter; if you take the time to read those first couple of pages, you won't be able to put the book down until you've reached the very end.

The addictive quality of THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST isn't so much the journey it takes to the predetermined destination as the folks with whom you're going to be riding. Chief among them is Gina Davies, best known as "The Doll," the name she uses at the Chairman's Lounge, an "upscale" pole dancing club in Sydney, Australia. The Doll, perhaps, is not your typical dancer, given that she has not only dreams but also goals, and an actual plan for achieving them. There are things that get in the way --- an addiction to prescription medication and shopping being the major impediments --- but she nonetheless is closing in on her ultimate dream when she has a somewhat casual sexual fling with a gentleman named Tariq.

Before the following morning is barely over, The Doll finds herself wanted by the authorities, first as a person of interest and then as a suspected terrorist. It is here that Flanagan's plot begins to slightly fray around the edges --- he stacks just a few too many circumstantial blocks one upon the other to hope to keep them from tumbling over. But it's fascinating to see the other principals involved --- the press and law enforcement in particular --- collaborate both intentionally and accidentally to create a situation that tragically ruins a life.

The pursuit of The Doll proceeds slowly but inexorably, and as she goes rapidly from semi-amusement to incredulous disbelief to fatalistic acceptance of what is happening around her, the reader gradually learns more about her life, past and present, facts that make her current situation all the more tragic and yet somehow inevitable. Flanagan leaves two particularly tragic revelations in The Doll's life for the final third of the book, so that --- even with the ending revealed at the beginning --- the surprises, both good and bad, never seem to stop coming.

THE UNKNOWN TERRORIST is infused with a quiet explosiveness, like a cranial blood vessel bursting while at rest --- sudden, violent and final --- a disturbing tale half-whispered and never forgotten. You'll remember The Doll long after reading about her.

   --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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