Lauren Wilkinson sets the bar high in her debut novel. It is written as a letter from the protagonist, Marie, to her twin sons. She tells the story of how she became a spy and what it was like for a black woman to be working for the FBI in the 1980s. Marie is contracted by the CIA to go undercover and spy on Thomas Sankara. The political aspect of the book is inspired by the true events surrounding Sankara, the president of Burkina Faso during the Cold War. Ultimately, this is a story about family. The novel spans decades as Marie also tells her boys their entire family history – from her relationship with her parents and sister, to meeting their father and what became of him. “I’m writing this to give you honest answers to the questions I hazard to guess you’ll ask while you’re growing up. I’m writing it all down here just in case I’m not around to tell you.” The pace is a bit slower than the average spy thriller, but for me it pays off because of the depth of the characters
What would you do if your husband cheated? Would you stay together? Would you seek revenge? Maybe you would do both. The writing style is distinct and fanciful—it took me a while to get into its rhythm, but it works well for this story that is mostly stream of consciousness told from Lucy’s point of view. Lucy is a very flawed but relatable character. I was on team Lucy from the first page. Lucy finds out her husband has cheated, and it makes her question her own present, past and future. At times she even steps out of herself and the point of view switches to third person, narrated sometimes by the harpy that Lucy has obsessed about her whole life. “ I asked my mother what a harpy was, and she told me: they punish men for the things they do .” This is another novel that doesn’t have quotation marks, which seems to be very popular right now. In this case, it adds to the surreal quality of many scenes—we are totally in Lucy’s mind, and we are not sure if it is completely sound