Win The Audiobook of The Informationist!

Corporations need her. Governments pay her. Criminals fear her. But nobody sees her coming. Vanessa Munroe is THE INFORMATIONIST. Not exactly a spy, government agencies and corporations hire her to go to foreign lands and compile the kind of unwritten, vital information about key players and their customs of operation that are necessary to succeed in overt and covert endeavors. Vanessa/Michael has a unique constellation of assets: a keen analytical mind, an uncanny knack for languages, a physique that allows her to pass as either male or female, and the combat skills to save her skin when the going gets rough. Born to American missionary parents who cared more for bringing religion to central Africa than for the welfare of their only daughter, Vanessa rebelled by taking up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. Her knowledge of obscure tribal dialects got her the job, but it was the mystique she cultivated as a white girl in the heart of a voodoo-rich jungle that made her so valuable to her mentor, Francisco. As his protege she honed both her strategic mind and her knife skills, accompanying him on drug and weapons runs where her mere presence seemed enough to keep potential traitors at bay. But there was another man on their crew whose obsession with Vanessa reached dangerous heights, and nine years ago she completed a terrifying escape to the U.S., cutting off all contact with Francisco and building a life for herself in Texas.

There she meets powerful attorney Kate Breeden, an older woman who will become her friend and agent. All of Munroe’s contracts route through Kate and although she was due for a much-needed break, Breeden calls with an unusual request just as she’s finishing up a job in Turkey. American oil billionaire Richard Burbank wants to hire the woman now known as Michael Munroe to locate his daughter, who vanished while backpacking in Africa four years ago. It’s not her typical assignment, but Munroe can’t resist the challenge. Where others have tried and failed, she dredges a cold trail across three continents into the Central African lands of her youth. Initially Munroe is accompanied by Miles Bradford–ex-military, now privately contracted by Burbank to aid Munroe during her search. Used to working alone, Munroe distrusts Bradford and often eludes him for days at a stretch while carrying out her own private business with old contacts. But when she wakes up on a boat with men pointing guns at her head and Miles nowhere to be found, she is truly on her own. Left for dead, cut off from civilization, and desperately needing answers in order to survive, Munroe is forced to face the history she has spent nine years trying to forget and to risk being swallowed completely by the demons that drive her.