The first novel in a planned series, Unfinished Business represents a new direction for Shankari Chandran, Miles Franklin Award winning author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens and more recently Safe Haven. This one is a political thriller in the manner of John le Carré and features Ellie Harper, a CIA agent who is sent to Sri Lanka on a mission to investigate the assassination of high-profile journalist Ameena Fernando, an event inspired by the real-life murder of journalist and human rights activist Lasantha Wickrematunge in Colombo in 2009.
The narrative moves back and forth between Sri Lanka in 2009 when the civil war is coming to an end and Ellie Harper’s mission four years previously that ended in disaster. A hotbed of scheming, secrets and jostling for power, the country, although ostensibly post-war, is, if anything, more turbulent and dangerous than before. Ellie immediately involves herself in high stakes political conflicts far beyond her brief. At the same time, she is preoccupied by unfinished business from her past, both personal and professional.
In common with her earlier novels, Chandran’s story is underscored by geopolitical commentary on the Sri Lankan civil war, the Tamil people’s fight for self-determination and the heinous behaviour of governments and civic authorities in promoting their vested interests at the expense of the powerless.
It’s a racy plot, incorporating a multiplicity of characters and agendas. At times the various intrigues threaten to overburden a story which is already weighed down by the alternating and similar scenarios of past and present. Chandran is a skilled storyteller, and this book demonstrates her virtuosity with different styles of narrative. I found the character of Ellie, at times, a little derivative, but it will be interesting to see how Chandran develops her in future novels.Four stars BC Ultimo Press $34.99
Reviewed by Anne Green
Read a book review of Safe Haven by Shankari Chandran
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shankari Chandran is an Australian Tamil lawyer and writer. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens was short-listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2023. Song of the Sun God was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award and short-listed for Sri Lanka’s Fairway National Literary Award. The Barrier was short-listed for the Norma K Hemming Award for Speculative Fiction. Song of the Sun God is being adapted for television, starring Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran (no relation).
Shankari has spent two decades working as a lawyer in the social justice field, on national and international program design and delivery. She continues her work in social impact for an Australian national retailer.
She is based in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her husband and her four children and explores dispossession and the creation of community through her fiction.
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