American Spy

 American Spy is an exciting suspenseful debut novel written by Lauren Wilkenson.  It has won many awards and was published at a very tense time in American life.  

This is the story of a young woman, Marie Mitchell,  who is looking forward to being a Federal employee, a member of the FBI.  It has been the dream of her sister and herself since childhood, when her sister sid she wanted to be a spy.  Brought up by their policeman father after their mother leaves the family and retreats to her home on Martinique.  Marie looks up to her sister and when her sister is killed while working as a spy, Marie joins the FBI.

Now she is hired by the FBI but is given a position she feels is beneath her.  She is sure she is being overlooked because she is a young woman of color.

In her frustration she is approached by someone recruiting her to the CIA.  He has a special assignment he says she alone can do. Appealing to her pride and seeing that he can use her to his advantage.  Marie takes on the assignment.  She is supposed to try and attract the new young Thomas Sankara, the leftist president of Burkina Faso.  This is a real figure in history, that the CIA was interested in overthrowing.

Marie must decide if she wants to follow through with what the CIA assigned her to do.  Things get heated when Marie starts to feel that the requests being made of her are not morally acceptable.  She must weigh her feelings about right and wrong,  her personal feelings about Sankara as she gets to know him better and her feeling that the CIA and its agents are immoral.

This novel is told in reverse, starting with Marie as a mother to two sons, running to hide in Martinique with her mother after years of separation.  Some of the decisions she has made in her life are starting to catch up to her.  As she decides her next move she writes this book as a letter to her sons telling the story of her life.