Shankari Chandran has received deserved praise for her novels that centre around the experience of the civil war in Sri Lanka. Her 2017 novel Song of the Sun God followed the lives of a Hindu family living through the civil war – both those who left Sri Lanka and those who stayed behind. And her 2022 novel Chai Time at Cinamon Gardens, set in a Sydney nursing home, about how history continues to shape us, won Chandran Australia’s prestigious Miles Franklin Award. With her latest novel Unfinished Business, Chandran takes readers back into the Sri Lankan civil war. Set predominantly in 2009 but flashing back to events four years earlier, Unfinished Business is a thriller that is interested in the international context of the conflict but also the ordinary people affected.
It is 2009, CIA agent Ellia Harper is convinced to go back to Sri Lanka under cover of supporting aid negotiations, to investigate the murder of a prominent journalist. Harper had left Sri Lanka four years earlier under a cloud, for reasons that will slowly be revealed in flashback chapters throughout the novel. Almost as soon as she arrives, Harper puts herself in the firing line while investigating the newspaper offices of the murdered woman. With her (decidedly flimsy) cover blown, Harper’s only recourse is to keep pushing. Around Harper, the Sri Lankan government is dealing with the Chinese, who are supplying arms and infrastructure and seeking a foothold in the region, while the US is trying to muscle in and get a seat at the table.
Ellie Harper is a kickarse CIA agent who has a checkered past in which she tried to do the right thing but ended up paying the price, a price she is still living with. For continuity sake, it is worth mentioning that while she works for the Americans, Harper was born in Australia and her father lives at the Cinnamon Gardens nursing home in Sydney. Harper is fierce and unyielding and as a result has strong allies, which she will need as her investigation progresses.
Unfinished Business is Chandran exploring and revealing the story of Sri Lankan modern history in yet another register. Chandran is interested in the global political manoeuvring and how the push for peace was placed second to the development aims of foreign nations. And she sells her messages effectively by embedding them in a page-turning thriller with a few twists and a ticking-clock plot.
Unfinished Business by Shankari Chandran
2 Comments
Would it be better to read the books in order or at least her second book before this?
They’re very different – more like separate stories (and even genres to an extent) in the same milieu with some Easter-egg style connections. So you can read them in any order.