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 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 led by the charismatic svengali Bruno Lacombe. 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 as Sadie is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Beneath this parodic spy novel about a woman caught in the crossfire between the past and the future lies a profound treatise on human history. Creation Lake is Rachel Kushner’s finest achievement yet – a work of high art, high comedy and irresistible pleasure.