Nothing on Earth

“I often traveled for work.”

So begins Nothing on Earth, a propulsive novel that tells the story of Anna Hendrix, an American spy, as she seeks to learn the nature of an unknown, potentially powerful material that begins to appear at seemingly random points around the world and that science can’t explain. No one knows what it is; everyone wants to find it.

For a long time, Anna worked in counterterrorism, but her new mission is something different, a mystery that sends allies and adversaries scrambling across the globe to find answers. Her pursuit takes her from the Horn of Africa to Southeast Asia, through expatriate enclaves that play host to a wide cast of characters: aid workers, diplomats, foreign correspondents, energy magnates, insurgents, dissidents, and, inevitably, other spies.

As the pressure mounts to find the source of the material, Anna must make choices with life-changing implications not just for herself, but for the people with whom she deals, even as her search takes her far from the young daughter waiting back home. In Nothing on Earth, Ian MacKenzie reimagines a pivotal decade in the Pax Americana, from the killing of Osama bin Laden to the storming of the Capitol. Anna’s voice—lean, wry, coolly intimate—is our companion and guide through the dark topography of geopolitical power and, in the end, the outer limits of human comprehension.

For fans of Rachel Cusk and John Le Carré alike, this is a story of power and secrecy, espionage and science, parenthood and loss, and the question of how we know what we think we know, how we make sense of our existence on Earth.

“An elegant, existential thriller, rich in modern spycraft—a Great Game for our Silicon Age, with a meditation on futility and loss at its heart.” — Deepti Kapoor, author of Age of Vice

"A requiem for old forms of power, and lessons for the new. A masterwork that will bear rereading." — J.M. Ledgard, author of Submergence

“I could not stop reading. Every chapter of this book leaves you wanting more of MacKenzie’s spare and beautiful prose, his ability to see the idiosyncratic interiors of people and to capture in fiction the things we care about, and his mischievous take on the worlds we think we know. This is a book for our time.” — Uzodinma Iweala, author of Beasts of No Nation and Speak No Evil

“With Nothing on Earth, MacKenzie delivers not only a sharply intelligent and gripping tale of international espionage, but also a profound meditation on maternal love, the uses of knowledge, and the cost of lives we lead in the dark. This is the 21st century literary spy novel we’ve all been waiting for.” — Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth