American Spy

American author Lauren Wilkinson’s debut novel, American Spy (2019), follows FBI agent Marie Mitchell, an African American woman trapped in the bureaucracy and outdated power structures of her job. When the agency gives her the opportunity to bring down Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, she agrees—not knowing that doing so will forever alter both her life and her view of her country. American Spy received many accolades, including a nomination for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author, an entry on the shortlist for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, and a coveted spot on President Barack Obama's summer reading list. It was also named among the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, and many other publications.

As the novel opens in 1992, Marie Mitchell catches and kills an unknown intruder who breaks into the Connecticut home she shares with her four-year-old twins. Marie recently left her longtime position at the FBI and fearing that the incident with the intruder might bring further reprisals from the many enemies she acquired in her former job, she packs up her sons and goes to Martinique. Once there, she starts writing a document of her time in the FBI so her sons can someday understand why she did what she did.

Marie grows up in New York City with her older sister, Helene, their mother, Agathe, and their policeman father. Wanting to be a spy, Helene enters the military after high school. But later, Helene dies mysteriously, something that long haunts Marie.



From 1983 to 1987, Marie works for the FBI, first relegated to managing the paperwork of her unbearable boss, Rick Gold. In 1987, Ed Ross of the CIA asks her to keep tabs on President Sankara during his upcoming visit to the United Nations. She doesn't want to take the assignment at first, since Ross wants her to seduce Sankara in order to get his secrets. Nevertheless, she finally agrees, feeling pressured to do so. Posing as his UN guide, Marie accompanies Sankara around New York City, including to her home in Harlem. She sees that he cares about his people and about ending apartheid. The two get to know one another, and Marie reveals her own thoughts on politics and her family. She obtains the intelligence the agency needs, but she does not seduce Sankara, which ignites a fury in Ross and Gold. Looking for an excuse to get rid of her, Gold then suspends her for a minor, unrelated administrative error.

With Marie's time suddenly freed up, Ross swallows his pride and again asks for her help. He wants her to go to Burkina Faso to continue infiltrating Sankara's inner circle. She says yes, only because she will be able to meet Daniel Slater, who lives in Burkina Faso and was Helene's boyfriend.

Once there, Marie continues fostering a relationship with Sankara. However, her goals derail when Slater drops two big pieces of information on her. First, she is not in Burkina Faso on official CIA business; she is instead working for a private company run by Ross and Slater. Second, Helene died in a car accident after she and Slater married in Las Vegas. Now, the entire tenor of Marie's mission changes. Slater supplies Marie with poison and orders her to kill Sankara with it when she sees him at an upcoming event for a Ghanaian wildlife refuge.
Secretly, Marie agrees with Sankara's views. She sees firsthand the good he is doing for his country. So, after arriving in Ghana, she tells Sankara who she is and what Ross and Slater are up to. Sankara tells her that Ross and Slater only want to start trouble because their company will profit from having US military bases in the country.



Marie and Sankara sleep together; this is the night she conceives the twins. Later, they return to Burkina Faso, and Marie sneaks into Slater's home, killing him. Slater's girlfriend calls the police, and they pursue Marie through town until she escapes on her motorbike into the bush.

When she runs out of gas in the desert, a man helps her get to a village, where she refills her tank and the locals feed and tend to her. She continues on to Ghana and catches a plane, first to Europe, then to Martinique. Safely at home with Agathe, Marie has the twins. Despite threats from Ross, she eventually moves to Connecticut with the boys.

Now, back in Martinique, she knows what she must do. She asks Agathe to look after the boys, and she returns to America on her own to kill Ross—and close the door on her past once and for all.