Terrorist

A searingly powerful, utterly gripping and timely new novel from one of America's greatest living writers. In his extraordinary and highly charged new novel, John Updike tackles one of America's most burning issues - the threat of Islamist terror from within. Set in contemporary New Jersey, Terrorist traces the journey of eighteen-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, and his devotion to Allah and the words of the Holy Qur'an, as expounded to him by a local mosque's imam. Ahmad feels his faith threatened by the materialistic, hedonistic society he sees around him in his slumping factory town, and neither the world-weary guidance counsellor at Central High School, Jack Levy, nor Ahmad's mischievously seductive black classmate, Joryleen Grant, can succeed in diverting him from what his religion calls the Straight Path. When Ahmad finds a job at a furniture store owned by a recently immigrated Lebanese family, a plot is hatched - one that will reverberate far beyond the increasingly fragmented community to terrifying effects. But to quote the Qur'an: Of those who plot, God is the best.