First published 2019
Marie Mitchell sits at her FBI desk in 1986, drowning in paperwork while her white male colleagues handle the important cases. As a brilliant young Black woman in intelligence, she watches better assignments pass her by. Then a shadowy task force offers her a mission that could make her career: travel to West Africa and help bring down Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso's charismatic Communist president. Marie accepts, even though she admires Sankara's work for his people. She's still grieving her sister's mysterious death and suspects she was chosen for her skin color, not her skills. In Burkina Faso, Marie begins surveillance on Sankara, then seduces him as part of her cover. She finds herself torn between duty to her country and growing feelings for a man she's meant to destroy. The mission forces Marie to participate in the coup that topples Sankara's government. The experience transforms her understanding of loyalty, love, and what it means to serve America.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, american, african-american, 21st-century, espionage
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Burkina Faso, West Africa
Period: 1986
304 pages · Hardcover · Dialogue Books
Content warnings: colonialism, racism