Synopsis

A serial killer hides behind an untouchable global institution. A broken system fails the victims. One woman vows to uncover the truth.

When young women are found dead in the capital of the Central African Republic, United Nations official Stella Fairmont is reminded of the unsolved disappearance of a friend. As she investigates, she uncovers what may be a chilling pattern: similar deaths in another UN location.

The deeper she digs, the more twisted the view becomes and Stella finds herself up against a system built on compromise, in which accountability is often an illusion. When the truth gets blurred and personal histories can be hidden, the only way to survive is to trust her instincts. But as friendships run thin and time runs out, she must navigate a minefield of lies, moral complexity, and buried secrets — all while trying to stay ahead of someone who would kill to keep the truth hidden.

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Guest Post

When Did My Life Become Fiction?

By Liz Wanic

One day, I was sitting in a classy restaurant overlooking the Niger River in Bamako, the capital of Mali. As I sipped a glass of chilled rosé, a friend of mine, an officer from an Eastern European country, told me he had run into a group of guys from his home nation at the airport. I asked what they were doing in Bamako, and he said they would be working security for one of the mineral mines outside of the capital. When I told him it struck me as odd that the men would choose such an occupation, he just laughed. “They’re probably in trouble with the police back home,” he said.

That got me thinking about the different kinds of people who travel across the world for their jobs. There are idealists working next to opportunists working next to people running from something. I was in Bamako as part of a UN peacekeeping mission. My friend was seconded to an EU military training operation. The men he ran into were a type of mercenary. And if they were running from the law back home, who was to say they’d be more respectful of it in Mali?

I’ve also lived abroad in non-UN settings, and I’ve always been intrigued by the dynamics between ex-pats and local communities and the ways people choose to act when they are outside of their home environments. Unfortunately, you can always find some people choosing to behave like monsters when there is limited accountability.

I began to think about how easy it would be to get away with murder in certain situations, including some of the chaotic places I’d lived. Including in Mali at that moment. Looking around the restaurant and thinking about the people I knew there, I began to wonder which of my coworkers already had.

I decided to take that idea and turn it into a novel, and that’s how Under Cover of Chaos was born. With help from my editor-in-chief – my twin sister – I used real settings and real scenarios to build out the narrative around the premise that someone could take advantage of the chaos around them to hide murder.

So is Under Cover of Chaos a true story? The answer is no. But it does pull events and details from a true story – a true story that just happens to be my life.

About the Authors

Liz Wanic worked for the United Nations for almost a decade in New York and in multiple field missions, including Syria, Mali and the Central African Republic before moving into cybersecurity. Her experiences have given her a sharp eye for detail and a deep understanding of the inner workings of power in complex situations.

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Rebekah Wanic, Liz’s twin sister, is a social psychologist, university professor and mindset coach. She focuses on the intricacies of the human condition and the complications of balancing competing demands.

Sister’s Literature website