“American Spy updates the espionage thriller with blazing originality.”-Entertainment Weekly

“There has under no circumstances been anything enjoy it.”-Marlon James, GQ

“So very much fun . Just like the greatest of John le Carré, it’s extremely tough to put down.”-NPR

NAMED AMONG THE 10 Perfect BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BETTER BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE BRAND NEW York Times Publication Review • Period • NPR • Esquire • Vulture • True Simple • Good Housekeeping • THE BRAND NEW York about American Spy: A Novel Public Library

Imagine if your feeling of duty required you to betray the person you love?

It’s 1986, the center of the Chilly Battle, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer using the FBI. She’s outstanding, but she’s also a young black woman employed in an old kids’ membership. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for each high-profile squad, and her times are filled up with monotonous paperwork. Therefore when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force targeted at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic innovative president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology provides produced him a target for American involvement, she says yes. Yes, despite the fact that she secretly admires the task Sankara does for his country. Yes, despite the fact that she is still grieving the inexplicable death of her sister, whose example led Marie to this career path in the first place. Yes, despite the fact that a furious component of her suspects she’s being offered the job because of her appearance and not her talent.

In the entire year that comes after, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and eventually have a hand in the coup that will provide him down. But doing this changes everything she believes about what this means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American.

Inspired by accurate events-Thomas Sankara is recognized as “Africa’s Che Guevara”-American Spy knits together a gripping spy thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, and a separate romance. That is a face of the Cold War you’ve under no circumstances seen before, and it introduces a powerful fresh literary voice.

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

“Spy fiction plus allegory, and a splash of pan-Africanism. What could go wrong? As it occurs, hardly any. Clever, bracing, darkly funny, and really, really good.”-Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Inspired by true events, this espionage thriller ticks all of the right boxes, delivering a sexually charged interrogation of both politics and race.”-Esquire

“Echoing the stoic cynicism of Hurston and Ellison, and the verve of Conan Doyle, American Spy lays our complicities-political, racial, and sexual-bare. Filled with unforgettable characters, it’s a stunning book, timely as it can be classic.”-Paul Beatty, Guy Booker Prizewinning writer of The Sellout