City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson
Natalie C. Anderson’s City of Saints and Thieves is a murder-mystery set in the tough city streets and a fancy mansion of the fictional Sangui City in Kenya, Africa. Tina is a sixteen year old thief in the Goonda gang, and she has two goals in life. First, she wants to protect her half-sister Kiki. Second, she wants revenge on the man who killed her mother, the white business tycoon Roland Greyhill, who is also Kiki’s father.
Tina has been training for five years for her mission of revenge, and plans to empty Greyhill’s bank accounts. But she gets caught in the act, not by Greyhill, but by his son -- Tina’s childhood best friend Michael. Tina becomes trapped between a promise to Michael and her commitment to the Goondas. There are several rules that Tina lives by, and one of the top ones is “thieves have no friends.”
Michael convinces Tina, through both bribery and words, to help him prove that his father is not really her mother’s killer. That effort takes the pair away from Kenya and back to Tina’s homeland, the war-torn Congo. First time author Natalie C. Anderson incorporates a fictionalized version of the real world in Africa, where corporations are plundering the country’s natural resources and forcing employees to work in horrid conditions. Anderson herself was an aid worker in Africa and explains that she saw first-hand much of what she writes about.
City of Saints and Thieves incorporates several elements rarely seen in contemporary young adult fiction: corporate espionage, a story set completely in Africa, a story where much of the resolution is not clearly defined. There is a sprinkling of Swahili throughout the book, and Anderson provides a guide to help with phrases.
City of Saints and Thieves is a promising start for a new author and is a great fit in any high school library. Give this book to students who like mysteries that they’ll have to work hard to figure out, or readers who are looking for a captivating book that’s unlike other YA titles they’ve read before.
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