The first novel from creative writing teacher and former journalist Roland Fishman has a plot ripped straight from today's front-page headlines.

A Muslim extremist group based in Indonesia has plans to launch devastating attacks on Sydney on New Year's Eve – and only one man can stop them: special operative Russell Carter, an Australian version of Lee Child's Jack Reacher – a man of few words but much action. We first meet Carter at Lennox Head, where he is surfing after walking away from the "order" – a group of crack paramilitary types who travel the world doing good, often at great cost to their own psyche.

"Every time you took a man's life, a part of you died with him," our hero reflects.

After a group of Indonesian thugs try to drown Carter is drawn back into his former life when Thomas Wing, leader of the order and a man Carter regards as a second father, is kidnapped from a bush property on the Queensland-NSW border and held captive on a remote Indonesian island.

Carter has to save Wing from the world of violence and malevolence he thought he had left behind forever. The Indonesian terrorist cell (with help, of course, from a group of Lakemba radicals) is trying to kill him – and every other member of the order – to clear the way for its deadly Sydney attack.

The leader of the jihadists, Samudra, sees himself as the new Osama Bin Laden, ruthless and cruel.

To counter the threat to Sydney, Carter is forced again to team up with Wing's daughter, Erina – his previous love and a woman he once abandoned.

So here we have a thriller that has all the elements for success in the Australian market; a surfing, martial-arts proficient and taciturn hero and a beautiful sidekick with whom he still has unresolved issues.

Roland Fishman sets a fierce pace over almost 400 pages with the action (and violence) seldom slowing.

The founder of the Writers' Studio in Sydney in 1992, Fishman has taught creative writing to thousands of students since – and while his plotting is believable and this is a good read, I had several issues; not least a sense that racism bubbles under the surface against Indonesians in general.

Thus we hear: "The vast majority of Indonesia's Muslims were good friendly people who contributed to society in a positive way" but we also learn "Indonesia was riddled with corruption and vice. If you strayed too far off the beaten track you entered a shadowy realm full of dangers". Mixed messages.

Fishman's love of the surf shines through: "A moment of holy stillness surrounded by the surging power of nature; a fragile snapshot of perfection." And we even get some potentially man-eating sharks that threaten our hero. There is nothing like a combination of terrorists and sharks to frighten mainstream Australia.

Unfortunately Fishman's attempt at adding romance to the action is clunky: "The lovemaking they shared was both tender and passionate, reconnecting their minds, bodies and spirits at the deepest level and bringing him to a place of inner stillness."

That said, you can't help but enjoy a thriller in which samurai swords, untrustworthy South Africans and drunken, deluded English football fans all make appearances.

This is expected to be the first in a series of thrillers featuring the enigmatic and lethal Carter.