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 answers for the appearance of a mysterious and potentially powerful metal of unknown origin. 

For a long time, Anna was in counterterrorism, but now she is on a new mission, one that sets friends and enemies 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, of course, other spies. 

As the pressure mounts to find the original source of the metal, Anna must make choices with life-changing implications not just for herself, but for the people with whom she deals, always bearing in mind the young daughter waiting for her 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, understated, unflappable—is our companion and guide through the dark topography of geopolitical power, and in the end, the furthest reaches of human comprehension. 

For fans of Rachel Cusk and John Le Carré alike, this is a story of power and secrecy, geopolitics 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.