American Spy

By Lauren Wilkinson,

Book cover of American Spy

Book description

A BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING 2019 PICK

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

'A whole lot more than just a spy thriller, wrapping together the ties of family, of love and of country' BARACK OBAMA

'There has never been anything like it' MARLON JAMES (GQ)

'A…

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Why read it?

4 authors picked American Spy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Spies, lies, love, coups, what more do you want? In the book we encounter Marie Mitchell, now under threat of assassination, but previously a CIA spy who had fallen in love with–and collaborated in the downfall of–Thomas Sankara.

For Marie, the transition to the CIA is a way of escaping the stifling and misogynistic FBI of the 1980s. For the CIA, a black, attractive woman is ideal to snoop in and undermine a charismatic leader. The book, told by Marie as a letter to her children, moves back and forward between her spying missions and her (self)exile in Martinique.

It…

From Luca's list on the CIA real stories and histories.

A young FBI agent finds herself in West Africa in the 1980s just as the Cold War drives everything the US government does. She’s pulled into a covert plot to depose a communist-leaning politician while struggling with her own demons. I loved the story because it pulled together so much: politics, history, intrigue, and romance.

From Todd's list on how the US government really works.

I love this book because Wilkinson takes politics, race, romance, along with the good, the bad, and the ugly of the intelligence community and wraps it up in a bow of deeply evocative writing that kept me twisted up.

Just a quick teaser to show my love of her writing: “I unlocked the safe beneath my desk, grabbed my old service automatic, and crept toward my bedroom doorway, stealthy until I was brought to grief by a Lego Duplo that stung the sole of my foot.” [Insert sobbing emoji here for how much I love this line] Her writing had…

This book is probably best known for making Barack Obama’s summer reading list. The story of a Black American woman working for the FBI who gets recruited by the CIA for a Cold War mission to befriend, and ultimately undermine, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso is the type of historical fiction I love, a spy thriller based on true events and taken directly from the headlines of the 1980s. Wilkinson brilliantly weaves together a story of race, class, gender, identity, and above all patriotism and loyalty.

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