Marie Mitchell

Marie Mitchell is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel. Marie was born in New York City in the mid-1950's, to a family including her older sister Helene, and her parents Agathe and Bill. Marie's parents would eventually divorce, and as a teenager she shared Helene's aspiration to join the intelligence community. While Helene would tragically die as a young adult, Marie continued to work towards a career in intelligence, and joined the FBI in 1983. After doing bureaucratic work until 1987, Marie's first mission in the field becomes tremendously complicated when she develops an affinity for her target, Thomas Sankara, over the motivations of the Americans who sent her on the mission. Marie and Thomas conceive twin sons days before Sankara's American-backed assassination, after which Marie spends the next few years running from her former bosses in intelligence. As of 1992, Marie leaves her children with her...