MCGAHAN, ANDREW

Think ahead five or so years or so from now, to an Australia transformed by the war on terror. Canberra has been wiped out in a nuclear attack. There is a permanent state of emergency. Our worst fears of loss of liberty have been realised - and no one wants to play cricket with us anymore. Enter Leo James, who finds himself abducted by terrorists. 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.

Estimated despatch 14-20 days after ordering.