Narrated by Laurel Lefkow.
Released 26th May 2022 by Isis Publishing.
From the cover:
In 2006, Julia Lerner is recruited by Russia's largest intelligence agency. By 2018, she's in Silicon Valley as COO of Tangerine, one of America's most famous technology companies. She funnels intelligence back to the motherland, but now Russia's asking for more, and Julia's getting nervous.Alice Lu is a first-generation Chinese American whose parents are delighted she's working at Tangerine. One afternoon, while performing a server check, Alice discovers some unusual activity, and now she's burdened with two suspicions: Tangerine's privacy settings aren't as rigorous as the company claims they are, and the person abusing this loophole might be Julia Lerner herself.
The closer Alice gets to Julia, the more Julia questions her own loyalties. Russia may have placed her in the Valley, but she's the one who built her career; isn't she entitled to protect the lifestyle she's earned?
Kathy Wang grew up in Northern California and holds degrees from UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.
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Julia Lerner may seem to have it all as COO of Tangerine, one of America's most prestigious technology companies, but her life is not quite what it appears to be. To reach the dizzy heights of Silicon Valley royalty she has been given a little helping hand along the way courtesy of Russian Intelligence.
Abandoned as a child, she grew up in a Russian orphanage, and was desperate to escape the hard life that lay before her. Her guile and ability to think on her feet got her recruited to the SPB in 2006, and, as her handler Leo Guskov's special project, 'Minerva' has been passing information back to her spymasters for years via a loophole in Tangerine's privacy settings.
It is now 2018 and Julia has come to enjoy the life she has in America. Recently married, and with a baby on the way, Julia is no longer willing to risk losing all that she has gained. When Leo begins asking her for information that is becoming more difficult for her to obtain secretly, she is worried that she may be exposed. Where do her loyalties really lie?
Alice Lu is a first-generation Chinese American, working in a lowly role at Tangerine. Her career has not gone the way she was hoping, but her parents are delighted that she works at such a distinguished company. One afternoon, while carrying out a routine sever check, she notices some abnormal activity. This takes her down a rabbit hole that uncovers the privacy backdoor that allows Julia to access the information she has been passing on to Leo. Can Julia Lerner really be abusing her power?
Impostor Syndrome is not your average espionage thriller. It certainly contains all the elements you need to make up a cracking page turner about the life of a spy under deep cover, but along the way it also has you looking long and hard at the fallacy of the American Dream; and the toxic environment of Silicon Valley, especially when it comes to women.
The story splits between Julia, Leo, and Alice, as they play their separate roles of secret agent, SPB handler and investigator, but rather than making them caricatures careering about in a pacy spy caper Wang takes you right inside their heads so you can understand exactly what motivates them to act as they do. This creates a very interesting novel that wanders into satire country, and it means it is not easy to label any of them as good or bad.
In fact there is something relatable in each of their stories that draws your sympathy - Julia's desire to keep what she feels she has earned, Alice's conviction that something is rotten at the heart of Tangerine, and Leo's acknowledgement that there are parts of his job that are becoming more distasteful as the years go by. I really enjoyed how Wang explores their dilemmas, comparing and contrasting different facets of their experiences as the book progresses. I actually found myself rooting for Julia almost from the very beginning of the story, even though she is a spiky character, because she had such fire and determination.
Wang touches on so many themes in the telling of this tale. She casts a sharp eye on the modern face of espionage, the abuse of power, privacy, racism, sexism, and the reach of monster organisations. The way she looks at how women are forced to play the game dictated by patriarchal rules to succeed in business is especially insightful. She also has a ball with mixing up shades of almost every possible human emotion in her characters, and she makes you feel each and every one - particularly anger and outrage.
The audio book is narrated by Laurel Lefkow, who is a new voice artist to me. It did take me a while to get into the clipped rhythm of her speech patterns, as I do not listen to a lot of audio books narrated by American voices, but she actually turned out to be the perfect choice to carry the story through to its fascinating conclusion. She was particularly good at voicing the female characters.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story, and the ending is deliciously ironic. There is scope for a sequel here too, which I would really like to read, so Kathy Wang if you are listening, I very much want to know what happens next!
Impostor Syndrome is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Isis publishing for allowing me access to an audio recording of this book in return for an honest review, and to The Reading Closet for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.
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