American Spy: A Novel Audiobook (Free)

“American Spy updates the espionage thriller with blazing originality.”-Entertainment Regular

“There has under no circumstances been anything like it.”-Marlon James, GQ

“So much fun . Like the best of John le Carré, it’s quite challenging to place down.”-NPR

NAMED ONE OF THE 10 Preferred BOOKS OF THE ENTIRE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BETTER BOOKS OF THE ENTIRE YEAR BY THE BRAND NEW York Times Book Review • Period • NPR • Esquire • Vulture • Real Simple • Great Housekeeping • THE BRAND NEW York about American Spy: A Novel Public Library

What if your sense of duty required you to betray the person you love?

It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer using the FBI. She’s amazing, but she’s also a black woman employed in an old kids’ golf club. Her career provides stalled out, she’s overlooked for each and every high-profile squad, and her days are filled up with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to become listed on a shadowy job force targeted at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has produced him a target for American intervention, she says yes. Yes, even though she secretly admires the task Sankara does for his country. Yes, despite the fact that she is still grieving the secret death of her sister, whose example led Marie to the career path in the first place. Yes, even though a furious section of her suspects she’s on offer the job due to her appearance rather than her talent.

In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and eventually have a hand in the coup that may bring him down. But doing so changes everything she is convinced about what this means to be always a spy, a fan, a sister, and a good American.

Inspired by true events-Thomas Sankara is recognized as “Africa’s Che Guevara”-American Spy knits jointly a gripping spy thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, and a separate romance. This is a encounter of the Cool War you’ve by no means seen before, and it introduces a powerful fresh literary voice.

Shortlisted for the guts for Fiction First Novel Prize

“Spy fiction plus allegory, and a splash of pan-Africanism. What could fail? As it occurs, hardly any. Clever, bracing, darkly funny, and actually, excellent.”-Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Inspired by real events, this espionage thriller ticks all the right containers, delivering a sexually charged interrogation of both politics and race.”-Esquire

“Echoing the stoic cynicism of Hurston and Ellison, and the verve of Conan Doyle, American Spy lays our complicities-political, racial, and sexual-bare. Filled with unforgettable characters, it’s a stunning book, timely as it is normally timeless.”-Paul Beatty, Man Booker Prizewinning author of The Sellout