The Unexpected Spy by Tracy Walder is a fascinating memoir. Walder gives readers an eye opening view into her life working for the CIA and the FBI. Walder went directly from life as a college sorority girl to becoming a spy. She was part of an elite group hunting terrorist cells around the globe post 9/11. Her stories are as exciting as any thriller, but they are true. Unexpected is also the treatment Walder received from her male coworkers at both the CIA and FBI. Walder’s inspirational book is a must read for anyone curious to know what really goes on behind the closed doors of America’s spy organizations.

"The Unexpected Spy" is a compelling, enthralling and exciting read about the exploits and adventures of a highly dedicated, young female CIA officer. It starts off with her being recruited from college, where we get to know the genesis of our author, and we soon follow her off to war, to fight the war on terror.

Ms. Walder exceptionally manages to incorporate her own personal experience into the many facets of the war on terror, without losing perspective of the bigger picture. Her personalization only instills and heightens our awareness of the dangers she exposes herself to, while at the same time, one is left with a sense that our safety, back home, is being protected. She is a tough, savvy officer, whom is fiercely determined to succeed.

I want to thank St. Martin's Press and Net Galley for an advanced digital copy.

Tracy Walder's The Unexpected Spy (St. Martin's Press 2020) is a real-life account of one 23-year-old's rise from college graduate to a highly-respected intelligence-gathering CIA operative hired on directly after 9-11. The tagline sums her job up pretty well:

From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists

But it's how she got there that makes this an exceptional tale. She's not the girl who spent her youth dreaming of working in intelligence, preparing herself with all the necessary skills and contacts. In fact, her journey is nothing you'd expect. In her own words:

"I was one woman. One Californian. One former sorority girl who was utterly determined to be seen as the individual resource I was rather than the government I represented."

If spies are supposed to be undetectable, unpredictable, and unusual, Tracy is perfect. She goes straight from her college sorority house to the CIA, bringing along her hair curler, bright red lipstick and perfectly matched nail polish. When you see her sitting in a Starbucks with her $5 coffee, the first thing you'd think of wouldn't be "She's a spy". In fact, you'd never think that which makes her perfect. She starts right after 9-11 analyzing intel on how to bring down those who attacked America. We join her in Crash Bang School where she learns how to knock the other guy off the road while going really fast, in Poison School where she learns to make the same horrendous poisons that terrorists unleash on innocent civilians, and then a variety of operations around the world, many of which she can't share too many details. In each, though, it's clear: Her goal is to gather intel that defeats America's enemies.

Her voice is straightforward, honest, and strong as though she is talking to friends, not strangers reading her memoir. It is one of the most personal accounts I’ve ever read of the aftermath of 9-11 through the eyes of our intelligence agencies. Despite her co-ed roots, Tracy proves to be strong and resilient with a fear of nothing, a never-quit attitude, and a steel core that keeps her centered.

"I’ve always liked being in the eye of the storm, the quiet, hidden center of it all, rather than with the crowds outside observing."

She is proud of her background and never feels like it makes her weaker or she must apologize for it. This scene shows how unabashedly solid she is in her own self-confidence when another agent tries to make fun of her sophisticated clothing (which she is proud of):

[Fred asks]: “What kind of ridiculous outfit is this?”

“My suit?” I thought it was sharp. Stylish. The wrinkles had even fallen out since the flight.

“You’re in the Middle East, for f***sake,” he said, “not on a shopping trip at Saks Fifth Avenue.”

Fred waddled away quickly. Once he was out of earshot, I leaned into Ben and said, “Definitely sexually frustrated.”

A personal note. I am politics-averse. Any discussion is as likely to end up a shouting match as an informative discussion. Despite that this book is about the government's response to the worst attack on US soil since WWII, Tracy just shares what she did. No lectures, moralizing, or pontificating.

Highly recommended for armchair spies, future spies, and anyone who loves a real-life thriller.
--to be posted to my blog, WordDreams 3/2020

The Unexpected Spy is a fascinating memoir of Tracy Walder who after college went on to work at the CIA and FBI. The memoir provides readers an open window into her training and career. Even though there are redactions, the authors presentation of the content provides enough detail for readers to fully understand the trajectory of events. Her story is presented with candor and it is engrossing and well worth reading. Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from St Martin's and NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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An excellent book with a thriller-type engaging story! I love the cover, and I love the premise (from sorority girl to CIA). I think most moms (like myself) can become hooked on a woman's story of combating terrorism, as we read it from the safety of our homes. I absolutely loved this book and am thrilled to promote it to the world on my Bookstagram page.

When I saw this book when browsing the Netgalley selections I immediately had to request it. As a life long Nancy Drew fan, I always dreamt of being a spy, and a girly girl spy is right up my alley! This book did not disappoint. I felt like Tracy gave a solid overview of her life as it relates to her time in the CIA and FBI without going too in-depth to be boring. I was so intrigued by career path and how she played a large part in keeping our country safe, especially post 9-11. I even found the redacted parts of the book intriguing. I was at first worried they would take away from the story, but I think in fact they added to it. If you want to read about a strong woman, this is a book you should pick up. I know I will be passing around my copy to family and friends.

This book was a good read about going into the CIA I think it would make a good movie also. I kept my interest first time reading this author very good

The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists by Tracy Walder drew me in when the description explained this was a memoir of a woman who had gone from being in a sorority at the University of Southern California to doing counterterrorism work on behalf of the country. While at USC, Tracy is drawn to international affairs, and she interviews and is obviously then hired by the CIA. She joins just before 9/11, so what this career path looks like very quickly changes. Much of the story focuses on the work that she did for the CIA. Given the secretive nature of her work, there are parts that are heavily redacted (as the agency had to review what she wrote), and she has changed some details to not give up secrets from the work. I'll be honest I really didn't know all the ins and outs of what CIA worked entailed, so it was fascinating to read about this. What I also really liked is what she shared about her background. Growing up, she struggled with self-confidence. Part of her joining her sorority was wanting to find a place where she fit. She also was drawn to the CIA because of her interest and passion for international affairs. I loved how this messaging was woven in. To me, that was the heart of her work, and I appreciated that authenticity. The story ends with her detailing her shift to the FBI. WIth this, she names systemic issues with that experience. I appreciated her honesty here. I loved that this ended with the work she now does as an educator to help girls see their potential to enter into careers in intelligence, politics, public policy and/or whatever they want. This was an interesting and empowering memoir where I unexpectedly learned a lot and had such respect for the woman who experienced it all. Thanks to NetGalley for the look at this new release!

This book is the true story of how a sorority girl worked hard to join the CIA and the FBI and helped foil terrorist activities across the globe. It is story of inspiration, of silent heroes and their dedication in whatever they choose to do. The spy memoir also lingers around the topic of prevalent misogyny in the said agencies, and conveys how our protagonist gracefully dealt with it all.

Across the length of the prose, several parts have been erased out in order to maintain confidentiality as seen fit by the publishers and/or the government agencies. While I understand the need to this, I do not understand why haven't they just been removed and the connecting text re-written to maintain a continuous story flow. The breaks are distracting, to say the least.

Thanks to the author and the publisher for the e-ARC.

One-time read.

This is a fascinating story! I was lucky to receive an early copy of this book and was blown away. This will make a great movie

What an unexpected life Ms Walder has led going straight from university to the CIA and then the FBI. Being in place during critical events such as 911 gives her a most unusual position to give insight into not only important world events, but also the inner government responses to those same events. She writes not only as an observer of momentous activity but also as a direct actor in many volatile situations. The writing is clear and compelling and held my interest throughout. A definite recommend.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher/author for the arc I received in exchange for my honest review.

This highly readable. absorbing memoir has already received a huge number of reviews, so I don't feel I need to summarize Tracy Walder's background, or the general layout of the book.

It's a very intense look at her experiences overseas while a CIA Agent as part of the Poison Squad (her name--I have no idea if that is a real thing). There were some very grim descriptions (severed heads, anyone?) but what I found most disturbing was the hate-filled misogyny aimed at her, especially during her FBI training. From her perspective, she was already judged for being a woman, a Jew, and blonde. At the FBI she was ostracized for being part of the CIA.

Her motivation for writing this book seems to be aimed at women, young women especially, whose brains and talent and skills are so very needed to fix this world full of toxic masculinity. Which sums up Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Otherwise she largely stays away from politics, outside of a few remarks here and there. Her focus was on her experiences as an agent of the CIA and then of the FBI, and the people she encountered within the service, and as targets.

It can be unnerving at time, and also moving, such as the incident after she fell down a stone stairway and lay in a military hospital bed at an undisclosed Middle Eastern hotspot. While she was there, a bombing happened elsewhere and a bunch of local women were badly wounded, suffering burns over most of their bodies.

As she lay in the hospital bed, she turned her head to meet the eyes of the woman next to her, whose face was badly burned. Walder describes how she stayed there, blending their gazes, their breathing even synchronized, a conscious effort after a nurse told her quietly that none of the women had made it--and they didn't have hope for this one either. But Walder wanted to give this woman as much human contact as she could until the end, and did.

The only negative observation I have to make is the long bits of redacted text marked with tons of ~~~~~. A substitute word such as thingy or McGuffin could have served just as well for the short bits, and as for the long paragraphs of ~~~~, they were unnecessary. It was sufficient to state at the outset that portions of her memoir were redacted for security reasons; this was not a report, or even a white paper, with footnotes noting every resource. The memoir was full of opinion, emotional reactions, and changed names, so the ~~~ seemed pointlessly intrusive.

But other than that I found it an absorbing read, and I hope that women like her are paving the way for a new generation of women.

Tracy Walder's The Unexpected Spy was an unexpectedly engaging read. An eye-opening story of her experiences working for the CIA and the FBI in a post 9-11 world. She also talks about her childhood and what led to her decision to apply to the CIA. I don't know how many current or former agents can say they went from a sorority house to holding such an important role in protecting our country.

It is interesting to hear what goes on behind the scenes when your goal is to identify terrorists around the globe. Actual names, places, etc., were redacted for security reasons, and at times I missed not having a better understanding of the country she was in as well as the particular political and cultural challenges. I don't know if the author could have rewritten any of the information so that it wasn't blacked out, but I would assume if there was a way, it would have been done. Being a young, attractive female in a male-dominated world had its challenges, and the author attempts to shine some light on what it was like, hopefully, to inspire change.

It's a fascinating glimpse into a job that we know very little about.

This book has san intriguing premise that hooked me from page 1: A sorority girl from Southern California joins the CIA around the events of 9/11. The book addressed several themes of those times, including the controversial search for weapons of mass destruction, in which the author was directly involved, The author wrote with the cooperation of her former employer, requiring large sections of text to be redacted. I thought that was distracting, but I understand its necessity. That is my only complaint. I think that the details of her assignments would have added to the narrative, but could have compromised the safety of her colleagues. Overall, this was a really interesting memoir.

This is the true story of Tracy Walder (ne' Schandler) a nice Jewish girl from California who went directly from USC into the CIA, where she spent several years as a counterterrorism staff operations officer, before leaving The Agency to become a special agent with the FBI.

Tracy Walder was a new face at Langley when the attacks on The Twin Towers occurred on 9/11. She subsequently transitioned into a position directly relating to finding and tracking terrorist threats that had her traveling to various hot spots around the world. Suffice to say, Ms. Walder has seen some stuff.

The Unexpected Spy doesn't try to be an all encompassing study of the events that occurred on 9/11 and the resulting operations that followed, it is simply one woman's - one AGENT'S - recollections of her participation in those things.

Told in an easy to follow style that simplifies a lot of really complicated issues without becoming condescending or patronizing. It's a bit like spending some time with your exciting globe trotting cousin... Never dry or dull just kind of a sense of 'Wow! So that really happened to you?'

This is a spy memoir for people who aren't necessarily fans of spy memoirs. Not too political, the people here are professionals not politicians, with a healthy dose of "girl power" for lack of a better term that shines through as Ms. Walder earns a place of respect in the CIA but struggles to be heard in the FBI.

There is a smattering of adult language, a few adult situations, and some violent imagery. Firmly within a PG-13 rating.

***Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and author Tracy Walder (with Jessica Anya Blau) for providing me with a free digital copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

When Tracy Walder was a sorority sister at USC, she planned on becoming a history teacher—but she was also a keen observer of current affairs. During a career fair, she gave her resume to the CIA representative, and that spur of the moment decision began her unexpected career.

Although Walder was a CIA operative working in war zones and traveling to countries where she’d be a valuable kidnapping victim, and her account is exciting, it’s also very accessible. The book reads like a friend recounting stories, and while it includes major victories and key setbacks, it also is filled with the quotidian experiences of life as a spy.

I particularly enjoyed reading about interactions with agents from other countries and how she had to handle their misconceptions of her. When she described her training at the FBI and the institutionalized sexism at the agency, I was so angry on her behalf!

Obviously, given her achievements, Tracy is spectacularly intelligent, ambitious, and hard-working, but in the text, she is modest and self-deprecating, often finding humor in her experiences—though she also shows how her self-confidence grew from her childhood when she was bullied.

As a former CIA employee, she had to submit her manuscript for vetting. She chose to leave the excised sections in, and I thought it was very interesting to see the blacked-out segments.

I really enjoyed this memoir, and think those interested in women’s stories, espionage, and 9/11 should add it to your reading list!

This was an interesting and at times riveting memoir. While I don’t read a ton of nonfiction, I’m a fan of memoirs, biographies, and true stories that almost feel like reading fiction. I figured the true story about a real life female spy would be right up my alley. This was a little different than I expected, but I thought it was very good. It’s very readable and I finished it in one sitting since I didn’t want to put it down.

What made this story really interesting to me was that Tracey was in her first year at the CIA when 9-11 happened. While of course Tracey can’t give away national secrets in this book, but getting her take on what is what like working for the CIA during that time was quite gripping. Tracey was also still in the CIA when the Bush administration kept asking for proof of saddam Hussein having WMD’s (bio terrorism was one of her specialties) but there were none for her to give them. They actually used Tracey’s poison terrorist chart (after they changed and tampered with her info) to help sell the war. Tracey really was right in the middle of many important moments and it was very interesting reading.

The book is a little tough to read at times, but not as much as you would expect for someone working in counter terrorism. There were references to many deaths and graphic pictures, but some of the toughest parts to read were about the sexism she faced. I also found it very interesting that while she visited countries where women have hardly any rights at all, the worst sexism and misogyny was from our good ole FBI. The teachers at Quantico are a bunch of dicks including the women teachers too. She actually had to write a letter of apology to a male instructor because he was “distracted” by the fit of her suit. A suit she had bought and worn while in the CIA. She had to write an apology and buy suits that were sized too big for the rest of her time in training. This is just one small drop in the bucket about how shitty the FBI treats women but I’ll leave the rest for you to read about.

I do have to say I had an issue with the information blackouts in this book. This book was sent to the CIA and parts where blacked out that they felt may risk national security. I get it, and it makes sense, but it seemed to be overboard at times. I think they cut out more than even what the Trump administration wants to cut from John Bolton’s new book. While it was a word here and a sentence there, other times whole paragraphs and even pages where cut. I’m reading and all of a sudden I don’t quite know what happened. It just drove me nuts. I wish in the parts that were cut, Tracey could have just changed names, places, whatever enough to keep the flow and meaning and just make it clear that these parts where “faked” for security reasons instead of just leaving things blank.

Since this is a memoir it doesn’t cover Tracey’s whole life. There is a little as a child and college age so you can see why the CIA appealed to her, but most of the book is about working in the CIA, FBI, and where Tracey is now. This book is filled with a lot of meat so to say, so it’s very easy to keep turning the pages. While Tracey mentions a guy she dated and her current status at the end, this is really about her fascinating career, not her personal life. The work she was doing didn’t leave much time for a personal life so you don’t feel like you are missing anything by not having those parts. I enjoyed this read and I would recommend this book to people who like stories about strong women. Tracey has been through a lot in her life and her story is well worth the read.

The Unexpected Spy was a fine, surprising, and enlightening read. Tracy Walder was a girly-girl from southern California, a Delta Gamma at USC, not the kind of young woman to join the CIA. And yet, she was passionate about history and politics, and when she approached a CIA recruiting booth at a campus job fair, she picked up a brochure, read it, and thought WHY NOT? Her memoir is an adventure from mapping terrorist groups on computer to surviving 9/11 to espionage in some of the world's most dangerous locales where she brought down terrorists and WMDs. We get all the scoop on those mysterious, vanishing WMDs in Iraq, and all kinds of great inside gossip. Through it all, Tracy remains cool, detached, collected, and determined to make the world a better place. Her experience with the FBI was somewhat less gratifying, but you really need to read this book and find out for yourself!

I found this to be a fascinating read. As I have held non-traditional jobs for females, I could empathize with Ms Walder. Yes, there are narrow-minded jerks in all professions.

I admire her sticking to her convictions and serving her country. I also understand not being able to divulge a lot of background information on the tasks she had to perform.

The personal stories added to the telling of her story.

I highly recommend this book.

I was never a news nerd, I was never a history nerd until November until the time of the 2016 U. S. election. However, I was not unaware of what was going on in the world, I just wasn't as well informed as I wish I had been. Prior to that election cycle, the only protest in which I had participated was a march up the Grand Concourse, in the Bronx, put on by Veterans Against the War (that would be the Vietnam War, and yes, I am a veteran).

A couple of things occurred to me more than once while reading this book. The first is there are allied intelligence services who don't work on Sunday, and second this narrative could have been the basis for the TV show "Covert Affairs." These observations are trivial when viewed in light of the entire narrative. The blurb calls this book "A highly entertaining account…" which it is. It is also a pretty frightening look at how we got to the post 9/11 country we are today.

When I read a book, be it fiction or non-fiction, I read everything including things like the "Author's Note" at the beginning of THE UNEXPECTED SPY. I find these introductory tidbits highly useful in understanding what I am about to read. As I read the author's note, I considered all that is in the news right now concerning John Bolton's book and how it had to go through a vetting process before he could submit it for publication. "THE UNEXPECTED SPY was submitted to the CIA's Publication Review Board. The board approved the release of this book as long as certain passages or sentences that they deemed threats to national security were redacted. I have left those redactions in place (appearing as black lines on the page) and have tried to maintain the continuity of the narrative around them." This is no Mueller Report full of offensive black marker looking passages; the redactions are simply dashed lines (several quite long), and, overall, the book flows around them quite nicely.

This is the kind of book that looks interesting and proved to be fascinating and informative. There are passages that will make you cringe, maybe even cry, that are balanced with, if not laughter, a bit of Zen realization on the part of a woman who went from an introverted and bullied schoolgirl to a powerful participant in one of the worst times in American history. To say that I have respect for Tracy Walder is an understatement.

I was particularly captivated by Chapter 9, "Truth and Consquences." In it I feel that I learned more about the lead up to the Iraq War than I have ever read or heard before. I could easily quote my reasons for singling out this chapter by quoting paragraph after paragraph. I won't. You need to read them for yourself. We, the American people, were lied to then and are still being lied to today. Why do I believe this woman? Because she holds nothing back about her life or her working experience. And, because I can see no reason for her to lie. This book is as much about Tracy Walder as it is about the failings of government and its agencies.

The majority of this narrative deals with Ms. Walder's experience as a CIA agent. She did some amazing work in the worst of places. And, she retained her humanity and strength of purpose. Her experience with the FBI is a statement on misogyny in law enforcement in this country.

Over the past few years, I have read several books by powerful women. I'm talking about women who have taken their destiny into their own hands and have made a difference. I am adding Tracy Walder to that list of women.