Purchase Links
The Unexpected Spy
Tracy Walder & Jessica Anya Blau
Genre: Nonfiction | Memoir
Published: February 25, 2020 (St. Martin’s Press)
A highly entertaining account of a young woman who went straight from her college sorority to the CIA, where she hunted terrorists and WMDs
When Tracy Walder enrolled at the University of Southern California, she never thought that one day she would offer her pink beanbag chair in the Delta Gamma house to a CIA recruiter, or that she’d fly to the Middle East under an alias identity.
The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder’s tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steel-walled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion. Driven to stop terrorism, Walder debriefed terrorists—men who swore they’d never speak to a woman—until they gave her leads. She followed trails through North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, shutting down multiple chemical attacks.
Then Walder moved to the FBI, where she worked in counterintelligence. In a single year, she helped taking down one of the most notorious foreign spies ever caught on American soil. Catching the bad guys wasn’t a problem in the FBI, but rampant sexism was. Walder left the FBI to teach young women, encouraging them to find a place in the FBI, CIA, State Department or the Senate—and thus change the world.
The Unexpected Spy is told in a straight forward, easy to read style dotted with only a few backtracks in the timeline when appropriate for setting the scene. Given the nature of Walder’s career in counterintelligence, there is a lot of information missing. I can’t decide if I agree with the decision to leave the obvious ~ to mark the redacted information in the book, though I understand why.
Readers spend most of their time in and around Walder’s career with the Central Intelligence Agency as a counterintelligence operative, jetting about in at a quick pace. This is followed by a much smaller section involving her time with the FBI. I wish there was more information about Walder’s time in the FBI but considering the length of her time in service and the role she served, it also shows readers why she was compelled to leave the bureau. We have seen a necessary uptick in stories revolving around women in traditionally male-dominated careers and their efforts to succeed and advance. Walder’s story, unfortunately, isn’t an anomaly. I applaud her effort to not only share her story to the greater public but also to take her life experiences and use them to arm the next generation of women with the information they can use to succeed.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this read even if I didn’t binge it due to sensitivity to some of the material covered. While it isn’t anything gruesome, as a military spouse I tend to be a bit sensitive to some of the topics that Walder covered. I think out of the entire book, the epilogue was my favorite simply because of the heartwarming scenes with her students. I think her goal to educate and uplift female students is fantastic. If you enjoyed Jet Girls by Caroline Johnson, then I strongly suspect you will enjoy Walder’s story of her time with the CIA and FBI.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
About the Author
Tracy Walder is a former Staff Operations Officer (SOO) at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and a Special Agent at the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office specializing in Chinese counterintelligence operations and has taught high-school history and government courses at Hockaday School in Dallas, Texas. Now Walder is the Board of Directors for Girl Security, a non profit, non partisan group that brings national security curriculum to girls in high school throughout the US.
