The Shadow Game

By 2015, when Chris and Steve turned their attention to the third and final novel of the Secret City trilogy, many of the events in the real world had begun to eerily reflect much of the fiction from their first two novels. The former Labor Government had slashed spending on Australia’s defence industry – much to the chagrin of the military brass – and the sale of the strategically-important Port of Darwin to a company with links to the Chinese Communist Party sent shockwaves through Australia’s political elite that reverberated all the way to Washington. As well, the revelation that Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology had been the victim of a massive cyber attack was accompanied by the revelation that Australia’s Federal Parliament email system had been compromised by an adversary.

All roads led to Beijing.

By 2016 China was making regular front page news in Australia, whether it was Beijing’s determination to occupy and develop islands in the South China Sea or the Australian Government’s intervention to stop Chinese companies from bidding for the NSW power grid. Then Chris, at the time working for the national broadcaster, the ABC, revealed that $5.5 million had been donated to federal parliamentarians by people with links to the CCP. Australia’s spy agency, ASIO, chimed in, warning the three major political parties about the shadowy links of some of their donors.

And then, echoing the fictitious scenario involving Labor Defence Minister Bruce Paxton, ALP Senator Sam Dastyari was ensnared in a scandal following revelations a Chinese-linked company had paid his legal bills.

As the Shadow Game was being drafted, it was clear that art and life were colliding, if not colluding.

It was also a tumultuous period in Australian politics with Malcolm Turnbull ousting Tony Abbott as Prime Minister on September 14 (coincidentally at the very time Secret City was being filmed in and around Parliament House).

When the Shadow Game was published in August 2016 it seemed only appropriate that one of Australia’s most senior intelligence chiefs, ASIS boss Nick Warner, would launch the novel – at the National Press Club, no less!

Once feared newshound Harry Dunkley has fallen a very long way from his perch, disgraced and dispirited at having failed to reveal the existence of the cabal of mandarins pulling the strings of power in Canberra. When he is rescued from a cell in Sydney’s Central Jail – after running amok at News Corp HQ at Surrey Hills with a cricket bat and a lifetime of animosity – he is taken to Marist Fathers’ seminary in Hunters Hill.

There he receives aid from an unlikely band of adversaries, including former Prime Minister Martin Toohey. As the Australian government teeters between fear and greed — wanting US security and Chinese cash — Dunkley looks at his enemies afresh.

He returns to the national capital where resurrected Labor powerhouse Catriona Bailey and the hitherto untouchable Defence chief, Sir Jack Webster, have played Dunkley at every turn. But the former scribe and his newfound chums will set out to find the chink in Webster that might just bring him – and Bailey – down.

Title: The Shadow Game
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
Publication Date: 22/08/2016
Pages: 434
ISBN: 9781460751251
BISAC1: Fiction / Political