What is a terrorist? John Updike attempts to answer that question in his latest work of fiction, "The Terrorist." High school senior Ahmed Mulloy is the son of an absent Egyptian father and a distant Irish-American mother and wants to be a devout Muslim. He is subtly recruited by the neighborhood Imam to participate in a truck bomb terrorist plot. The high school counselor, Jack Levy, wants to save this young man from a low-end career driving a truck, and insinuates himself into the Mulloy family. Updike presents all the various aspects of the characters and the surrounding events while allowing the reader to make deductions that are not stated directly. We are allowed to enter the young man’s head and see what Ahmed thinks of American materialism and morality. This is a “thinking thriller” with the action carrying the plot with more and more dread to the conclusion. One becomes unsure who the actual villain is as Ahmed argues the Qur’an with his high school counselor, his mother and the Imam. This is a thought-provoking story drawn from today’s headlines and written by a key figure in American literature.