The Moroccan Girl

I feel like I’m constantly searching for a satisfying feminist spy novel, and I have yet to find one. (Send me recommendations, please.) The Moroccan Girl by Charles Cumming was fun, but ultimately fell flat for me. For one, the titular Moroccan Girl was actually Hungarian — she was just on the run in Morocco. That doesn’t make her a Moroccan Girl!!! But we’ll get to that.

The plot, broadly, is novelist Kit Carradine is set to speak at a literary festival in Morocco. Before he sets off, a mysterious man who supposedly works for the British government asks Kit to do a handoff, and search for a woman named Lara to give her a false passport. Lara was a member of the Resurrection, a worldwide movement targeted at corrupt politicians and alt-right media figures, but it quickly turned from harmless into terrorism, and Lara went into hiding. I’m not spoiling you to tell you there’s a romance subplot, there’s double agents, and there’s attempts at commentary on our current political climate.

Overall: I just want a badass female spy. Is that too much to ask?!?

Rating: ★★★