Creation Lake

From Rachel Kushner, Booker Prize finalist and two-time National Book Award finalist, comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France

''Reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture'' HERNAN DIAZ

''Compulsively readable... Kill Bill written by John le Carr¿ OBSERVER

Sadie Smith ¿ a thirty-four-year-old American undercover agent of ruthless tactics, bold opinions and clean beauty ¿ is sent by her mysterious but powerful employers to a remote corner of France. Her mission: to infiltrate a commune of radical eco-activists influenced by the beliefs of a mysterious elder, Bruno Lacombe, who has rejected civilisation tout court.

Sadie casts her cynical eye over this region of ancient farms and sleepy villages, and at first finds Bruno¿s idealism laughable ¿ he lives in a Neanderthal cave and believes the path to enlightenment is a return to primitivism. But just