Creation Lake

Sadie Smith is an American operative for hire, sent to rural France's Guyenne valley to infiltrate Le Moulin, a commune of radical environmentalists resisting a corporate scheme to drain the water table into "megabasins" for industrial farming.

Her assignment is to manipulate the group's leader, Pascal Balmy, into a public act of violence the authorities can use against him — but Sadie finds herself unexpectedly absorbed by the emails of Bruno Lacombe, Le Moulin's reclusive, Neanderthal-obsessed spiritual founder, whose ideas begin to unsettle her own sense of who she is.

Rachel Kushner's espionage novel was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.