Recent Read: City of Saints and Thieves

City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson

“If you’re going to be a thief, the first thing you need to know is that you don’t exist.”

Tina is an excellent thief. She knows how not to exist—how to go through a crowd unnoticed, swiping valuables from unsuspecting victims. She and her mother practiced the same kind of invisibility as they slipped away from Congo as refugees, landing in Kenya where her mother found a job working as a maid for the prominent and wealthy American businessman, Roland Greyhill. It was there, in Greyhill’s office, that Tina’s mother was murdered years ago.

Now Tina returns to the scene of the crime, hoping to exact revenge on the man who murdered her mother. With the help of her street gang, she plans to hack Greyhill’s computer and acquire secrets to ruin and bankrupt him. Everything is going according to plan until she's interrupted by his teenage son, Michael, her former best friend.

Michael doesn’t believe his father did it and convinces Tina to hold off on her revenge until he can acquire the security footage of what really happened that night. What follows is a compelling murder mystery. Twists lurk around every corner as Tina and Michael delve deeper into her mother’s history—including why and how her mother fled Congo.

I listened to Pascale Armand read this as an audiobook. Her narration combined with the developed characters, vivid setting, and good writing made for a very enjoyable read. But while the driving force of the book is this exciting murder mystery, at its heart lies a story of victims of conflict in Africa. The author worked for NGOs in Africa, and for 3 years, she interviewed refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. Her job was to listen to refugees tell their stories all day. In an interview, she said, “What I’d heard was every bit as compelling and engrossing as any dystopian or post-apocalyptic world.” It’s true, we have real life dystopias in our world today. Anderson handles this most heart wrenching part of the story with grace, delicacy, and, dare I say, even beauty. So while it is an excellent murder mystery, it’s also much more.