THE SARAH HANSEN SERIES · A SEMI-COZY SPY MYSTERY · AVAILABLE NOW
The Saudi Asssignment
The new teacher has a secret. So does the school.
One week after Sarah Hansen arrives at the American school in Saudi Arabia, a colleague is dead, and the compound is eager to mourn and move on. Sarah starts taking notes. She is more than the new government teacher. She is also a CIA officer, sent to find whoever is leaking classified secrets ahead of the biggest IPO in history. The Agency needed someone who could truly live the job, and Sarah has spent years in a classroom, so no disguise was required.
Behind its guarded gates, the compound is a small town with better security, all dinner parties and neighbors who know each other's business, and one of them is a killer. Between grading papers and chaperoning school trips, Sarah investigates on her own. The closer she gets to the truth, the harder it becomes to stay the person everyone believes she is, and in a kingdom where getting caught is not an option, one wrong question could cost her everything.
Where To BUY
A NOTE FROM SPRING
Why I wrote this book
I taught at American schools in the Middle East for eight years, and every summer someone back home asked, half joking, whether I was secretly working for the CIA. I never was. But I knew the world those questions came from, a compound where everyone knows who came home at what hour, and I knew that a teacher would make the perfect spy. Nobody looks twice at the woman grading papers by the pool. The Saudi Assignment is the answer I finally wrote: a mystery where the dinner parties hold the clues and the new teacher is the only one asking questions.
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MEET THE SLEUTH
Meet Sarah Hansen
The spy no one sees coming.
Sarah Hansen taught for ten years before the CIA recruited her, and she took the job for the reason the agency wanted her: nobody looks twice at a teacher. Her first assignment sends her to an American school in Saudi Arabia, where a colleague is dead within a week and the compound would rather mourn than ask questions. Sarah asks them anyway. She reads a room the way she once read a classroom, catches the detail everyone else walks past, and has to stay the warm, slightly scattered new teacher everyone believes she is while she does it.
Day job
Teacher at an American school in Saudi Arabia
Years in the classroom
Ten
Night job
CIA officer, undercover
First Book
The Saudi Assignment
NOTABLE PLACES
Notable places in the book
The World Of The Saudi Assignment
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
The expat compound: a small town behind guarded gates.
Dhahran sits on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. It is the home of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, and of the residential camps and compounds where thousands of expatriate families from dozens of countries have lived and worked since the 1930s. Inside the gates, life looks like an American suburb lifted whole and set down in the desert: tree-lined streets, a school, a pool, a commissary, and neighbors who know exactly who came home at what hour. Outside the gates is the Kingdom, with its own rhythms, rules, and extraordinary hospitality. Teachers at the American schools live in this in-between world, and it is one of the most tightly knit communities on earth.
In the book
The Saudi Assignment is set in a compound like this one. The dinner parties, the school hallway, the neighbor who notices everything, and the sense that there is no such thing as a private life all come from my eight years teaching at American schools in the Middle East.
Plan a Visit
Dhahran, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia
Visitors need a Saudi tourist visa, available online to citizens of many countries
Best months: November to March, when the heat lifts
The WeEKEND Escape
Manama, Bahrain
Across the causeway, the island where the compound goes to breathe.
Bahrain is a small island kingdom just off the Saudi coast, and Manama is its capital. The King Fahd Causeway, about sixteen miles of bridges and embankments across the Gulf, opened in 1986 and turned Bahrain into the weekend escape for every expat in the Eastern Province. Manama has a souq that has traded gold, spices, and pearls for centuries, waterfront, world-class restaurants, and a relaxed, cosmopolitan feel that is very different from the compound. On a Thursday evening, the causeway traffic tells you exactly who is heading over for the weekend.
In the book
When Sarah's neighbors need to be somewhere no one is watching, this is where they go. The causeway and the city across it give the book its breathing room, and a few of its secrets.
Plan a Visit
Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain About an hour from Dhahran by car across the King Fahd Causeway
Do not miss: the Bab Al Bahrain souq and the Bahrain National Museum
Recipes From The BooK
Kunafa
The golden cheese pastry from The Saudi Assignment.
Serves 10 · About 1 hour, plus cooling the syrup
Ingredients
1 pound kataifi (shredded phyllo dough), thawed
1 cup unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
1 pound fresh mozzarella, low moisture, shredded, or akkawi cheese soaked overnight and drained
1 cup whole-milk ricotta
A few drops of orange or red food coloring, optional, for the traditional golden top
For the syrup: 2 cups sugar, 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 tablespoon orange blossom water or rose water
To finish: 1/2 cup crushed pistachios
Method
1. Make the syrup first. Simmer the sugar, water, and lemon juice for 10 minutes until slightly thickened, stir in the orange blossom water, and set aside to cool completely. The syrup must be cool when it meets the hot pastry.
2. Pull the kataifi apart with your fingers in a large bowl, breaking the strands into pieces about two inches long. Pour the melted butter over them and work it through until every strand is coated and glossy.
3. Butter a 12-inch round pan. If you want the classic orange top, mix the coloring into a tablespoon of butter and brush the pan. Press half the kataifi firmly into the bottom and up the sides.
4. Mix the shredded mozzarella with the ricotta and spread it evenly over the kataifi, leaving a half-inch border. Cover with the rest of the kataifi and press down firmly.
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes, until the top is deep golden and the edges are bubbling. Rest 5 minutes, then place a serving platter over the pan and flip it in one motion.
6. Pour about two thirds of the cool syrup over the hot kunafa, scatter the pistachios over the top, and serve warm with the remaining syrup on the side. It is best within an hour of baking.
Kunafa is a dessert from the Levant and the Gulf, crisp shredded pastry over a layer of soft, salty cheese, soaked in syrup the moment it leaves the oven. In the book, Reem and Saoirse argue about who makes the best kunafa in Manama. This is my version.
Free BooK Club Guide
The Saudi Assignment: book club guide
Download the printable guide below.
1
Sarah takes the CIA job partly because nobody looks twice at a teacher. Where in your own life have you been underestimated, and did it ever work in your favor?
2
The compound is a small town behind guarded gates, where everyone knows everyone's business. Have you lived or worked somewhere like that? What did it do to the way people kept secrets?
3
Sarah has to stay the warm new teacher everyone believes she is while she investigates. Which was harder for her, the spying or the pretending? Which would be harder for you?
4
The dinner parties are where the clues surface. Why do you think the author chose social gatherings, rather than chases or confrontations, as the engine of the mystery?
5
Which neighbor did you suspect first, and what made you change your mind?
6
Sarah reads the compound the way she once read a classroom. What skills from your own work would make you a good detective?
7
The book is called semi-cozy: a spy plot with the warmth and humor of a cozy mystery. Did the balance work for you? What did you want more of?
8
By the end, what has Sarah learned about herself, and what do you think her next assignment will ask of her?
A Note From Spring
Before you begin
Every summer I came home from teaching overseas and someone asked if I was secretly working for the CIA. This book is my answer. Thank you for reading it together, and if your group has a question for me, I would love to hear it at spring@springhempsey.com.
BooK Club Guide
Download the printable guide
All eight discussion questions as a printable PDF, with a note from Spring, and the kunafa recipe to serve your group.
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