American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson is her first novel. It's basically a political story detailing how the American government gets involved in many foreign countries. The book begins at night with a man sneaking into Marie's bedroom and trying to kill her. However she is a trained killer and was able to save herself and her twin boys. The books goes back and forth into different times of her life so we do learn who wants to kill her and what has led up to the present attempt on her life.

It's a great time for the spy genre. This is the second book I have read in the past year where a woman author subverts the traditional and goes behind the curtain to the ramifications of the actions taken by spies. The first book I read like this was Kate Atkinson's Transcription. In this book, Lauren Wilkinson does a wonderful job at setting the case for how an African American woman would be attracted to law enforcement based on her personal family history and end up being pulled into a "honey pot" job (where she is expected to seduce a young African leader).

This book, like Atkinson's, peels back the shadow nature of the characters that she is supposed to trust, making it confusing to know who the reader is expected to trust. Where this goes deeper than Transcription is the implications of race and power in her role and employment with law enforcement. I really liked how she interwove true historical actions taken from the FBI against the African American community into the story, (the murder of Fred Hampton, COINTELPRO, etc,) which helped to show how risky her work was and how isolated she was at work and in her community. The moral ambiguity was a very important theme of the book. While the summary sounds far fetched, the way it was written seemed plausible. It was only after I was done with the ARC that I heard that it was based on a true story.

I will be interested in reading more of this author's work. I found this a compelling and interesting story. I think this will be of interest for anyone who wonders about the experience of women of color in federal law enforcement, and those who like spy thrillers with women protagonists.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/25/696450945/american-spy-is-a-thrilling-debut-with-no-simple-answers
About halfway through John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, its wise old hero George Smiley is discussing the inherent paradox of the cover stories that spies adopt. "The more identities a man has," Smiley says, "the more they express the person they conceal."

This fan-dance of identity — with its many concealments and revelations — is central to American Spy, an excitingly sharp debut novel by the talented newcomer Lauren Wilkinson.

Spanning three decades and leapfrogging from New York to the Caribbean to the West African nation of Burkina Faso, this literary thriller leads us into unfamiliar territory. It portrays a little known slice of American interventionism and it shows us the workings of the intelligence community through the eyes of an African-American woman.

The book's heroine and narrator is Marie Mitchell, a one-time FBI agent, whose tale, like so many spy yarns, begins with an action sequence: An intruder breaks into her Connecticut home to murder her. With her young twin sons in tow, she flees to her mother's home in Martinique. And from there this smart, contradictory woman begins writing a letter to her sons explaining how she became a target, centering on two key periods of her life. This letter is the book we're reading.

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'American Spy' Is A Unique Spin On The Cold War Thriller
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'American Spy' Is A Unique Spin On The Cold War Thriller
We follow Marie's childhood in '60s New York, when she worships her larger-than-life sister, a wannabe secret agent who later dies under mysterious circumstances. And we follow Marie again in the 1980s, when she's become an ambitious but frustrated FBI agent in the New York bureau doing small-time work she doesn't believe in: She gets snitches to spill info on a harmless Pan-African group that the feds think is radical.

Things pick up when Marie is approached by a slippery CIA man named Ross. He recruits her for an undercover mission involving the Marxist leader of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, a real life historical figure who was known as the "Che Guevara of Africa."

Sankara is coming to New York to address the U.N., and Marie's mission is to, um, cozy up to the radical. She does. And as she begins falling under the charismatic Sankara's spell, Ross sends her to Burkina Faso for a secret operation whose goal is something he won't tell her.

And I won't tell you. Yet rest assured that American Spy will not only keep you turning the pages, it will do much more than that. Wilkinson steeps her thriller in a complicated awareness of huge, thorny themes: race, Cold War amorality, the politics of our intelligence services and the ease with which we can become complicit with deeds we actually abhor.

Marie lives in a world in which identities are fluid — light-skinned blacks pass for white, colleagues pass for friends, traitors pass for allies, intelligence agents pass for defenders of liberty. Marie herself has many identities, starting from the fact that she's a black woman trying to make it in a society run by white men, which means — as her policeman father tells her — that she's already living the double life of a spy. "It's easier," he says, "if they think you're one of them." Small wonder that Marie finds herself inspired by Sankara, a man who says, and acts on, what he truly believes.

All this has gotten American Spy compared to le Carré, and though it's not as elegantly tooled as the master's finest — the historical background sometimes gets a bit sticky — Wilkinson earns the comparison. Like le Carré, she knows that intelligence agencies are run by individuals protecting their own interests — which in Marie's case means the famously-white white men of the FBI and the CIA who look down on black agents, doubly so a black woman.

And just as le Carré never tires of showing the ruthlessness of the British ruling elite, so Marie reminds us of America's own dark practices — be it the FBI's role in the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton or the CIA's role in the toppling and murder of popular foreign leaders our government didn't like. If you're at all romantic about American intelligence agencies, Wilkinson will make you wonder if you should be.

In recounting her life as an American spy, Marie wants her sons to both understand what she did and to learn from it. And what exactly should they — and we — learn from an anti-communist mother drawn to a Marxist revolutionary, a black woman who served a white power structure that she knew kept her down? The simple answer is that there are no simple answers, no moral absolutes in politics or in life. If you divide the world into the damned and the saved, Marie tells us, you've missed the point of her story.

The action-packed opening of <i>American Spy</i> takes place late at night in a woman’s home. She is alerted by a creak outside her bedroom door and confronts an intruder who tries to kill her. The next morning, the woman packs up her two young children and leaves the country. She is Marie Mitchell - a single mother, the daughter of a NYC policeman, and a black American woman who, as an FBI agent, is trying to break into the all-boys club of her office.

This book has been described as a spy thriller so I had certain expectations. For the most part, they were not met. The main character is a spy but the focus is not on the tension and excitement of field work. Rather, the plot is more character driven and focuses heavily on its historical backdrop. Set in the 1980’s with the Cold War looming, there is a major focus on the charismatic, revolutionary President of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara. Beyond that it is the story of an intelligent and complex yet flawed woman and the drama of her family much of which is told through journal entries directed to her sons.

<i>American Spy</i> is complex and multi-faceted but it did not quite come together for me and was an up and down read. I had to push myself to see it through to its conclusion which I did not find particularly satisfying but definitely foreshadows Marie’s next exploit.


FYI - I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book felt like a missed opportunity. It was such an interesting premise, I went into it with high hopes. Then it committed the fatal error of being boring. The framework of the book--the way the narrator is telling the story in a journal for her sons--didn't work for me. The writing style ended up being far too reflective, with not enough immediacy. I just felt like there was far too much telling and way too little in the way of showing. Plus there were lots of details in the plot that I felt were insufficiently explained or just made no sense. Our main character is supposed to be brilliant--so why could I see things coming from a mile away when she couldn't? Seriously, we are given no evidence in this story to justify her supposed brilliance. Anyway, I give it two stars because at least I felt compelled to finish it.

DNF at 20%. I wanted to love this--the blurb sounds amazing--but I was too bored by the time I quit to have patience to get to the actual story. There was too much time spent on the main character's childhood and early life, and no real plot had yet emerged.

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson is a sensational spy novel with plenty of depth, intrigue and complexity. This one takes the spy genre into a new and exciting area! There’s so much more going on in this one than someone going undercover.

The story follows Marie Mitchell, an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. But saying yes is also complicated. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister and a good American.

We first meet Marie in Connecticut in 1992. Her twin boys are asleep in the next room, but we quickly learn she senses something is wrong. Then, a man breaks into her bedroom who tries to kill her but she gets him first. She knows exactly who sent this man to kill her. Marie then takes her boys to her mother’s farm in Martinique. While the boys get settled in their new life, Marie makes a plan for her next and potential final mission. Before she leaves, she decides to write to her boys to tell them everything—from who their father really was, why he died and what he meant to her. She also will tell them who sent that man to their house and why.

Telling the story in such a personal way lets the reader get to know Marie with plenty of insightful characterization. It shines a light on what it’s like to be a black woman in America working in a predominately male and white field. This story tackles race, gender, politics and history. There’s also a romance, which is done very well, too.

Another interesting component is that this book is inspired by true events. Marie’s mission is to get close to real life Thomas Sankara, who is known as “Africa’s Che Guevara.”

And with keeping true with spy novels of the past, there’s plenty of adventure and some action, too! While this is a complete story, I would love for this to become a series. I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Marie yet.

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American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson is a novel taking place in the last half of the 20th Century, following an African-American FBI officer, recruited by the CIA to undermine an African leader. This is Ms. Wilkinson’s first novel.


Marie Mitchell works as an FBI intelligence officer, but cannot break into the old boys club being an African-American woman. An opportunity to live the drudge of office paperwork behind falls in Marie’s lap when she joins a task force to undermine Thomas Sankara, president of Burkina Faso. Sankara’s communistic leanings have made him a target.

I enjoyed American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson very much, as it is a thought provoking book, which even though I might not agree with (based on my experiences), I can certainly understand the viewpoints presented. Ms. Wilkinson writing is fresh and elegant, easy to follow and tells a good story.

I’ve read many spy books before, the Cold War is of course a setting to many of them because it provides such a rich background. This novel does take place during that era, but doesn’t take place in the Eastern bloc, but instead in Africa.

The protagonist, Marie Mitchell, is a complex character which finds herself in the unenviable position of fighting for something she doesn’t really believe in. She is a strong woman, flawed, analytical, smart, who thinks for herself and doesn’t buy every story someone is trying to sell her.

As any good spy novel, it mixes espionage with politics, complex characters, and a healthy dose of “based on true events’ in the storyline. This is an excellent novel, debut or not, which makes you think even though I didn’t agree completely with Marie’s philosophy I, at least, understood where she came from.

I had high expectations going into this book, the title and cover alone reeled me in. What I expected was a face pace, on the edge of your seat, what’s going to happen next read and Lauren Wilkinson did just that. Based on a historical events Maria Mitchell, a black female FBI agent was sent to Africa to seduce and assassinate Sankara. Thomas Sankara is the leader of the African country of Burkina Faso. Maria’s loyalties to the USA are tested when she realizes that there are many dishonest things being done under the guise of saving the world from a Communist dictator. Told in flashbacks and in the form of a letters to her sons American will have you wanting more.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for this advance copy.

I really wanted to like this book. I did. Unfortunately, it fell short for me for two main reasons- the conceit of Marie talking to her sons left me confused as to what was what at times and, more importantly, the underlying premise of CIA sending a suspended FBI agent to Burkina Faso because CIA wanted to overthrow Thomas Sankara. The opening is very good- exciting- but then things descend into family back stories that left me trying to sort out who was who. This also moves back and forth in time just too much. Helene, Marie's sister, shone in her early appearances (great imagery when she uses her fists) but she was a cipher. What's with Mom? Dad? I was buoyed by the early FBI parts-which were realistic- but then... For the record, CIA officers could be and were fired for being homosexual during this time period (things have totally changed, btw) so there's no way one would come with his partner to a meeting with an employee of FBI. AND, while I was willing to go with some of the international political scheming, it just was not and is not legal. Parts of this read like a well researched piece on Burkina Faso, with some commentary on the US thrown in. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I think there's a better book in here than the one I read.

Immersing myself into the world of American Spy was an experience unlike any other. It was thrilling from beginning to end. I loved the tapestry of words that Lauren Wilkinson created. She had me hooked from the beginning with her story of a suburban mom who one night gets attacked in her own home and kills the intruder. So begins a story that takes us towards an escape and flashes back to tell the story of Marie Mitchell, an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s pulled into an intricate web that puts her on the path of Thomas Sankara, the charming Communist leader of Burkina Faso. I was fascinated by the spy thriller aspect of this story and by the history I glimpsed of Burkina Faso. Lauren Wilkinson does such an amazing job in showcasing the thrall of Sankara and why he rallied so many people around him. I found myself falling for his ideology and having to pull back and see how easy it would have been to follow his charm. You could tell that this book was very well researched. The way it paints the United States is a harsh truth that we have all come to realize about this country. The way it insidiously makes its way into a country’s dynamics and works behind the scenes to shake them. The other aspect that were just so brilliantly executed in this novel were its themes on race, identity, misogyny and family dynamics. I just couldn’t put this book down. There were so many times that I fell in love with how Wilkinson tethered words to feelings that seemed to completely resonate with the emotion they were attempting to showcase. There was such deep respect for her characters in this novel and the journey we were allowed to visit was one I was incredibly grateful to be a part of. I will leave you with a quote from Sankara taken from this amazing book, “But it’s not enough to discuss things. We are the elites. We can’t just talk about human rights, while we conveniently forget that we condemn thousands of children to die because we couldn’t agree on the best policy to help. Or in my government, if we can’t agree on a pay cut so that a little clinic out in the country could be built. Those kinds of choices make us part of the international complicity of men of good conscience.” Please read this amazing debut from this brilliant writer. I can’t wait to read more of her work.
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Thank you to Negalley and Penguin Random House for the free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review. Thank you to Lauren Wilkinson for sharing this book with us. It is definitely a historical fiction/spy thriller at its finest.

American Spy is unique in it's heroine. Maria is a black woman in the 1980s working for the FIB. It's a man's world and civil rights had a long way too go. She is always passed over. One day, the CIA offers her an assignment in Africa, and she accepts. The story opens with attempted murder on Marie. She flees with her young twin boys. The rest of the story is Marie explaining, in flashbacks and journal entries, how she got to this point. It's action, intrigue, suspense and drama. It's confusing at times. I got lost in some of the background. Marie is a strong intelligent dynamic character. Overall a good read but the ending could have been better. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Lauren Wilkinson's debut novel, American Spy, keeps the reader engaged and interested through good character development, stunning action, and intricate plotting. Well worth the read, this is the story of Marie Mitchell's life from her childhood without her mother, relying on her sister and strict father, to her career stalling out at the FBI. She jumps at the chance to assist another agency with an undercover in Burkina Faso - but all is not as it first appears. The ending hangs a bit, but it does leave the reader thinking and wondering. Looking forward to see what Wilkinson publishes next!

This book was hard for me to get into. It was very well written, but had a lot of content and was hard to understand. Once I was able to get into the book, I fell into the story a lot more easily and started to piece together the story.

It was an action-filled story that was great writing, but it was hard for me because it wasn't really my type of novel. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't for me. However, I know good writing when I see it, so I will rate this novel at a 4/5 because I know that others will like it despite my disconnect.

A solidly crafted thriller starring a fascinating eponymous character, an African-American female operative recruited from a dead end job at the FBI for a special assignment in Africa offered by the CIA. , where she wanted to be all along.. She never quite fit the Agency's requirements but she's assured by the recruiter that they have a need for her special talents now, even if the only one she can think of is her skin tone. Assuring her that her participation in their effort to blunt the popular appeal of a charismatic opponent of the US-backed government , while off the books officially, is Agency-sanctioned and will not only provide an escape from the dull gray world of the FBI but earn her permanent employment at Langley. She doesn't object to seducing him but she doesn't expect to fall in love with him, and she doesn't know until late in the game that his best friend and deputy has also been coopted by the Americans and d plans to kill him with their - and presumably her- help. Thehe pacing is uneven and there are places where the pieces of the plot don't quite hang together, but it makes up for those shortcomings with a complex protagonist who's pretty charismatic herself.

Centers on the backstory of a black female spy and how she ended up in the present time with a threat to her and her twin boys. The book is really strong and well written until the end when action gets lively but the storyline putters. This is a debut author to keep an eye on.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

1992. After an assassination attempt, an ex-FBI agent and CIA contractor, flees with her two young sons to her mother's house on the island of Martinique. While there, Marie writes her children an explanation of her life.

1962- 1992. The story of her life growing up in NYC, running informants as a new FBI agent, and eventual recruitment into the CIA to spy on the West African nation of Burkina Faso.

This one is a refreshing and sophisticated departure from the usual spy novel fare. It's a character study in the wills of the past, and the push to future legacies, but there a bit too much of a dialogue of ideologies. Yes, background is needed, but it is heavy-handed in some points.

I really liked the characters though. Marie is the portrait of a special weapon, used as a woman and an African-American. She rightfully has a hard time accepting her role at first, but sees an advantage that she may be able to hold. Yet, her controller holds all the cards and many times hides the wild ones up his sleeve.

Delicate and subtle in the telling at times and a rush of violence at others, American Spy is a book with an excellent premise and original character, yet a plot that stalls at times.

3 out of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing, and Lauren Wilkinson for the advanced copy for review.

I was initially drawn to this book due to its unique plot and strong female protagonist. It's a fictional story rooted in historical truths, and so I figured this book had great potential (similar to what Marlon James did with A Brief History of Seven Killings).

Unfortunately, this novel fell short for me. The story is told both in flashbacks and to her sons in the form of a letter/journal, which presents the author the opportunity to really delve into the character development. Instead - at the the end of the book, rather than wondering what the future holds for each of the people introduced within its pages, I was left wanting to know more about the inner workings of each the characters. So much more could have been done when it came to fleshing out the backgrounds of Marie's sister, mother, and lovers.

Overall, the strengths in this book lie at the core of the story being told, especially from the perspective of a black woman in a male dominated field during an era of grave social injustices and civil unrest. However, this book could have and should have been a lot longer, if only to give the author a chance to flesh out the characters and let their stories be told. I'm especially upset at the way the novel ended. I understand that at times authors want to leave their readers wanting more, but it was so anti-climactic that I almost wanted to throw my kindle at the wall.

Regardless, I recognize that this is a debut novel, and despite my gripes with this book, I'm looking forward to seeing what else this author has in store.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for providing me an advance copy of this book. I greatly appreciate the opportunity and below have provided an unbiased review.

Marie Mitchell is an FBI agent who while extremely qualified, is consistently passed over for high profile assignments. When you work for the FBI in the 1980's, you're living in a man's world. While buried in paperwork, she is left to wonder when her opportunity will come. One day, she is approached by the CIA to take an assignment in West Africa, where she is asked to get close to the young President and help the United States advance their interests over a budding Communist ally, Marie accepts the mission, but unexpectedly falls for her mark and so begins a story of complexity that only a talented author such as Lauren Wilkinson could tell.

While things have improved today in some instances and definitely on paper, there still exist the subtle ways women face constant discrimination. Whether it be that women are consistently underestimated, second guessed, "mansplained" to, etc. So it doesn't take much stretch of the imagination to put myself in Marie's shoes, trying to push against the current of the good ol' boys club, where she outmatches her supervisor and colleagues in intelligence and skill. How Marie's strengths and weaknesses are used against her are interesting to watch unfold.

I enjoyed this book and not only felt that it was very well written and researched, but was unique in its category. Having the main character be a black woman and the setting of the story take place outside of Europe or the Soviet Union was a way to set this apart from many other Cold War era spy novels. Marie is a complex character who has many flaws, but that only makes her more interesting. I definitely think this would make a good book club selection. My one criticism, which prevented me from giving the book a higher rating was the ending. I don't want to give anything away, but it left some things unresolved that I would have liked to have answers to. I give this 3.5 stars.

I will be posting this review to my Goodreads/Amazon/Listy/Instagram accounts now and again in January 2019.