Long before this, the Doll is already a marginal figure: certainly beyond the limits of respectability as a sex worker, although "providing a service" in the valorized terms of commodity culture. Falsely accused and pursued, she is ejected from society, becomes persona non grata—another homo sacer and victim of the war on terror. However, the success of the ritual casting out is guaranteed only when ordinary citizens can be made to implement it. The unusual thing about The Unknown Terrorist is that it is a white Australian non-Muslim rather than a Muslim who undergoes this process. The Doll is forced to inhabit the space in contemporary demonology occupied by the Muslim, but in the novel as a whole Muslims are almost entirely absent.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 375