In the opening of Unfinished Business – the new novel by Miles Franklin-winning author Shankari Chandran – Ameena, a leading Sri Lankan political journalist, is gunned down at close range in the busy streets of her Colombo neighbourhood. The shooting raises enough eyebrows in America that CIA agent Ellie Harper is sent to investigate (although not so deeply as to stir up any real trouble).
This scene, short but brutal, is reminiscent of Chandran’s previous book Safe Haven, which also opens with a death that provokes a similar political investigation. In both cases, the opening scene exposes the violent systems of injustice and oppression that prop up western politics – but in both books the subsequent investigation does little to change them.
