Name of the publication/blog/outlet where your review will be published/posted: Goodreads
Run date for when the review will be posted/published: Aug. 19, 2025 (unless approved to do so earlier); link to be furnished at that time.

---

I thank Random House Publishing Group and the author for the ARC I was provided by way of NetGalley to write this review.

One sentence review: men will literally create private armies rather than going to therapy.

Full review:

Offering a review of a memoir of this nature has been challenging, particularly when faced with a star rating system (a notoriously slippery way to think about things) and with my own personal baggage being the child of someone who has worked for several three-letter agencies (my bias likely abounding). I’ve settled on 4 stars – “I enjoyed it significantly, but it’s not without flaw and certainly not for everyone” – for reasons outlined below.

What works:

• Whitcomb’s life, as described, has qualities that would be incredibly attractive to jingoists, and throughout the work, Whitcomb describes scenarios, decisions, and beliefs that show him bouncing between this kind of weird reverence for violence he endured or inflicted and a profoundly vulnerable and depressed resentment of himself. The reflective, introspective, and sometimes poetic nature of Whitcomb’s reflections cut through most of the jingo-veneer and reveal the regret beneath effectively. This becomes more obvious as the memoir goes on, reaching crescendo in the last 2 chapters. Showing even a fraction of this much vulnerability is, quite frankly, astonishing to me, particularly as someone who has endured watching the endless machismo and peacocking men with his kind of life will demonstrate.
• Whitcomb’s voice is clear throughout this work. The pace and structure of the memoir all have a quality of a “sit around a fire with a beer and talk shit” vibe, with different illustrative vignettes dancing seamlessly and re-occurring as callbacks across its four sections. If this feels like damning by faint praise, consider that not-just-one best-selling author has been found to be clearly leveraging generative AI in almost every genre, not to mention the lazy, glossy, ghost-writing practices in the memoir space prior to AI even coming on the scene, so I mean it with all sincerity. I have a distinct sense of how exactly Whitcomb would tell me these stories personally, and that is an achievement in a memoir that I am certain had to be scrubbed within inches of its life to see the light of day for publication.
• The themes in the book are coherent, cohesive, and usefully obvious. Memoir is often the most painful genre to endure, exceptions for the Sedarises of the world notwithstanding; on the whole, it’s a genre that is frequently devoid of theme, crafted with such calculated exclusion as to be little more than an ego boost for the writer, and thus devoid of any answer to so what? when you’re done reading it. The book jacket in this case offers a very accurate description of what sets this work apart, calling the work “a confession, and a cautionary tale.” It is both. It is unambiguously an indictment of Whitcomb’s myriad chaotic choices and his determination to shake awake a kind of introspection that we all, collectively, really need to do on ourselves as well.

What almost works:

• The selection of vignettes Whitcomb uses to illustrate his life often include a heavy-handed reminder of all the impressive, famous, dangerous, notorious, or entertaining people he’s ever met. This is, in parts, a fascinating glimpse into how he walks between worlds, takes on new identities, or simply engages in violence for the sake of feeling like he can beat death alongside other people who share his particular affliction. Where the persons’ identities have to be occluded in some way, Whitcomb particularly shines in describing them. Being forced to leverage not their name, but the traits that truly make them notable makes Whitcomb’s writing stronger and far more interesting. In numerous instances however (e.g., his insistence on calling back to a card game with Brad Pitt), it reads like the barest and lamest braggadocio. I don’t doubt the veracity of these stories, nor that they are notable or standout experiences to Whitcomb, but they do little to offer the kind of insight that his other descriptions do (e.g., other government agents, the folks working for his privatized army). Dropping the star-studded references would go far in making this a more effective read.
• The more poetic passages or meditations on moments of violence are sometimes reflective but sometimes border on indulgent. By the 30% mark of the book, I need no proof that Whitcomb is an adrenaline junkie who has been trained to disregard human life when needed to preserve his own. When his reflections on particular passages offer some insight into why this particular act of violence is notable to him, it does well to create the sense that he is truly confessing, and that there is something he wants me to understand. When his reflections, inversely, are simply connective tissue to the next “scene” in his life, they feel more like the kind of aggrandized, “entertaining” violence of a John Wick movie. This is amplified by Whitcomb’s insistence on sometimes speaking to the reader directly, which in my view always cheapens the experience of reading something that is non-fiction. You don’t need to ask me if I believe what I’m reading, or insist that it’s true, I get it, and I trust the fact-checkers not to let you run roughshod on a major publishing house.

What doesn’t work, or won’t work for some:

• This book desperately needs a glossary. Folks who aren’t in or around law enforcement – particularly in the US – won’t know half of the unexplained abbreviations, and the more colloquial or dated terms for things will be equally indecipherable to anyone who doesn’t share his particular upbringing. This is fine, and even valuable in one or two instances, but Whitcomb’s recollections are so packed with these alphabet-soup references, and missing one will dilute the context of numerous passages, that a paragraph or two can go by and border on incomprehensible.
• This book is endlessly sadistic. Both in the manner in which Whitcomb admits to causing pain to others, or inflicting physical and spiritual pain on himself. There are precisely zero passages that offer respite from cruelty or suffering – even in quieter moments of recollection of childhood, there is an irrepressible sense that something bad will happen or be made to happen. The nature of the writing style – the “sit around a fire with a beer and talk shit” vibe I mentioned previously – is such that many readers may see Whitcomb as callous. Stories are told, connected to others, and their painful nature is hand-waved away only for reflection much later, much the way a friend might recount an incredibly traumatic story to you over dinner, only to start laughing and insist “but it’s kind of funny how wild that is, right?!”
• There is reverence for the war torn and the “exotic” in a way that is exhausting at best, and offensive at worst. I harbor no doubts that Whitcomb genuinely feels a tremendous connection to the nations where he worked, I don’t doubt he has been idolized, loathed, or both in equal measure as a white man in these places, nor do I doubt that he feels a kind of mystic connection to them. Unfortunately, all of that adds up to a rather uncomfortable collection of reflections that paint these places as ‘magical’ or so profoundly backward that they have some hidden secret to reveal to the visitor. (It is no surprise to me that Whitcomb cites Conrad as an inspiration throughout.) These beliefs remain almost totally uninterrogated in a way that undermines some of Whitcomb’s other efforts at vulnerable introspection.

In all, though uneven, this memoir is engaging and clearly meaningful. Anyone who has ever acted against their own interest to feel alive at the risk of death will find a lot to gain from this book and, unfortunately, I believe that would describe many of us.

this book was interesting! I think given the nature of this book, there were lots of slow, dull and dense moments. But it was still educational and taught a lot. It was interesting!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!