Underground is the novel that at least half the country
has been waiting for.
Think ahead five or so years from now, to an Australia transformed
by the never-ending war on terror. Canberra has been wiped out in a
nuclear attack. There is a permanent state of emergency. Security
checkpoints, citizenship tests, identity cards and detention
without trial have all become the norm. Suspect minorities have
been locked away into ghettos. And worse - no one wants to play
cricket with us anymore.
Enter Leo James - burnt-out property developer and black-sheep twin
brother of the all powerful Bernard James, Prime Minister of
Australia. In an event all too typical of the times, Leo finds
himself abducted by terrorists. But this won't be your average
kidnapping. Instead, vast and secret forces are at work here, and
Leo and his captors are about to embark on a journey into the
underworld of a nation gone mad.
Like some bastard child of Dr Strangelove and George Orwell,
Underground is both an adrenalin-pumped thriller and a
gleefully barbed satire that takes a chainsaw to political
neo-correctness and Australia's new ultra-nationalism. Blistering
and blackly comic, this book goes straight to the heart of the
country's future - and it isn't pretty.
