
The Unexpected Spy
From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists
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Narrated by:
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Devon Sorvari
About this listen
A highly entertaining account of a young woman who went straight from her college sorority to the CIA, where she hunted terrorists and WMDs
"A thrilling tale...Walder’s fast-paced and intense narrative opens a window into life in two of America’s major intelligence agencies." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
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 take 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.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
©2020 Tracy Walder (P)2020 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"The Unexpected Spy will get wide attention, and deserves it. It will give readers a different, more vivid, and more human idea of the actual work of spying, counter-intelligence, and dealing with terrorism. It will be especially important to young women who are considering this kind of career." (James Fallows at The Atlantic, author of Blind into Baghdad)
"A well-written, engaging memoir, a serious and candid inside view of two enigmatic and significant institutions from a woman's perspective." (Booklist)
"Tracy Walder's The Unexpected Spy is an engaging and thoughtful story of service that will inspire generations of young women to come. Tracy's story is particularly moving because it provides a candid but often untold account of the challenges of serving one's nation amid tumultuous times. As a woman in national security, Tracy offers a glimpse into the rewards and risks of actualizing a dream in a male-dominated space." (Lauren Bean Buitta, founder, Girl Security)
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Inside Qatar
- Hidden Stories from the World's Richest Nation
- By: John McManus
- Narrated by: Frazer Blaxland
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Just 70 years ago, the Gulf nation of Qatar was a backwater, reliant on pearl diving. Today it is a gas-laden parvenu with seemingly limitless wealth and ambition. Skyscrapers, museums and futuristic football stadiums rise out of the desert and Ferraris race through the streets. But in the shadows, migrant workers toil in the heat for risible amounts. Inside Qatar reveals how real people live in this surreal place, a land of both great opportunity and great iniquity.
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The excellent prose
- By Dorothy on 08-18-24
By: John McManus
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American Ambassadors
- A Guide for Aspiring Diplomats and Foreign Service Officers
- By: Dennis C. Jett
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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If you ever wondered who becomes an American ambassador and why, this is the book for you. This updated and revised edition of Jett’s classic book not only provides a timely overview of American ambassadorship for Foreign Service Officers, aspiring diplomats, and interested citizens, but also calls for much-needed reform, describing the dire implications of failing to change our ambassadorial appointments process for the future of American diplomatic practice and foreign policy.
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More about anti trump than Ambassadors
- By Hero on 03-13-25
By: Dennis C. Jett
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Means of Control
- How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State
- By: Byron Tau
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past five years—ever since a chance encounter at a dinner party—journalist Byron Tau has been piecing together a secret story: how the whole of the internet and every digital device in the world became a mechanism of intelligence, surveillance, and monitoring.
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Political biased for absolutely no reason
- By Red on 09-28-24
By: Byron Tau
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Breaking Cover
- My Secret Life in the CIA and What it Taught Me About What's Worth Fighting For
- By: Michele Rigby Assad
- Narrated by: Michele Rigby Assad
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The CIA is looking for walking contradictions. Recruiters seek people who can keep a secret, yet pull classified information out of others; who love their country, but are willing to leave it behind to head into dangerous places; who live double lives, but can be trusted with some of the nation's most sensitive tasks. Michele Rigby Assad was one of those people. As a CIA agent, Michele soon found that working undercover was an all-encompassing job. The threats were real. The mission was a perilous one. Trained as a counterterrorism expert, Michele spent over a decade in the agency.
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Deceptive title and sample.
- By Philip Yaghmai on 07-17-18
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The Arabs
- A History
- By: Eugene Rogan
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 27 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world's sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it.
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Superb Book About the Arab World
- By Nostromo on 05-29-16
By: Eugene Rogan
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The Trouble with Lexie
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Anya Blau
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Lexie James escaped: After being abandoned by her alcoholic father and kicked out of the apartment to make room for her mother's boyfriend, Lexie made it on her own. She earned a master's degree, conquered terrifying panic attacks, got engaged to the nicest guy she'd ever met, and landed a counseling job at the prestigious Ruxton Academy, a prep school for the moneyed children of the elite. But as her wedding date nears, Lexie has doubts. Yes, she's created the stable life she craved as a child, but is stability really what she wants?
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not even worth a dollar
- By Carrie L Watts on 06-08-21
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The Art of Intelligence
- Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service
- By: Henry A. Crumpton
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert here tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions. The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Henry Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever.
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Looking for a place in History?
- By Anne on 05-20-12
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2034
- A Novel of the Next World War
- By: Elliot Ackerman, Admiral James Stavridis USN
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, P.J. Ochlan, Vikas Adam, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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From two former military officers and award-winning authors comes a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034 - and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.
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Meh....
- By Ronald A McBroom-Teasley on 03-10-21
By: Elliot Ackerman, and others
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Mary Jane
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Anya Blau
- Narrated by: Caitlin Kinnunen
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1970s Baltimore, 14-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.
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👍
- By Alana Torres on 05-22-21
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Ghost
- My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent
- By: Michael R. McGowan, Ralph Pezzullo
- Narrated by: Mike Dawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Within FBI field operative circles, groups of people known as “Special” by their titles alone, Michael R. McGowan is an outlier. Over the course of his career, McGowan has worked more than 50 undercover cases. In this extraordinary and unprecedented book, McGowan will take listeners through some of his biggest cases, from international drug busts to the Russian and Italian mobs to biker gangs and contract killers to corrupt unions and SWAT work. Ghost is an unparalleled view into how the FBI, through the courage of its undercover Special Agents, nails the bad guys.
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Interesting story, but narration eh
- By Ahdumb on 10-06-18
By: Michael R. McGowan, and others
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The Recruiter
- Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence
- By: Douglas London
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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This revealing memoir from a 34-year veteran of the CIA who worked as a case officer and recruiter of foreign agents before and after 9/11 provides an invaluable perspective on the state of modern spy craft, how the CIA has developed, and how it must continue to evolve.
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What a whiner
- By Paw and Maw on 02-26-22
By: Douglas London
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Gray Work
- Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy
- By: Jamie Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Gurner
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unprecedented audiobook, a paramilitary contractor with more than two decades of experience gives us a firsthand look into the secret lives of America's private warriors and their highly covert work around the world. Author Jamie Smith has planned and executed hundreds of missions on behalf of government agencies and private industry in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots - and lived to tell the tale.
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Don't believe a word of it.
- By Dustin Harry on 08-26-15
By: Jamie Smith
What listeners say about The Unexpected Spy
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- JPALJ
- 11-22-20
LOVE TO SEE IT
Timely, one-of-kind journey alongside the compelling life of a brilliant, rugged, and inspired American who just happens to be a woman, and a DG to boot.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kathryn Parsons
- 05-22-20
Stagnant Narration Dries Out Fascinating Memoir
Tracy Walder writes in great (and I mean nearly annoying detail) the key experiences of her career that lead her to a successful career in counter terrorism all over the world and here at home while proving that a woman can do anything and more than men can. While the story can get dry in places, the sterile, monotonous narration turns a multifaceted story into a something with as much interest as the owners manual of a car -important yet dull.
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- Yankee Tango
- 12-09-20
Excellent recount
I loved this book. It may seem cliche, writing about a career in intelligence after leaving, but I thought this was an interesting perspective from, as the title states, an unexpected source. The author's tenure was relatively short, so it feels very much un-jaded and is more youth focused. If you're a college student debating a career in intelligence I feel like this would be a better read than some long tome about the spymasters of yore (though admittedly, I am neither a college student, nor interested in intelligence work).
I played a game with myself as I was listening to the book - she doesn't give names for some of the locations she describes but she does describe certain features of some of the places. I did countless google searches afterwards trying to ascertain what some of these places were and have a couple guesses.
I would've liked it more if the author herself had narrated it (I always prefer this for first-person auto-biographical type books) but the reading is totally fine.
I thank her for her service and wonder if she can cut onions without tearing up.
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- Ray M. Johnson
- 03-28-20
This is an ok book.
Fair, too much information about herself and not info about herself. One needs only the. First chapter.
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- Tom Woodson Jr
- 10-19-23
It had so much potential…
Tracy’s story is compelling and highlights the many challenges women face in their careers. I was truly saddened by how horribly she was treated in the FBI. What I was disappointed by was her need to identify women by their physical attributes. After the way she had been treated, it seemed odd she would treat these women in that way. The story could have been just as effectively told without that and suffers by it. The repetitive mentions of the fact certain sections were cut out by the CIA became distracting. It could have been handled once in the beginning. Instead, it continually disrupted the narrative.
Tracy accomplished a great deal in her short time with both agencies. The choice of narrator does not match that image. The narrator’s cadence and approach to the material makes Tracy sound a bit like a valley girl.
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- Dave Snell
- 07-10-24
Alternate Title
I felt this book could have been retitled: ‘(paragraph/section/word) Redacted, CIA Review’
In the cases where this was the case, why not reword or write those redactions in a manner where it is not included in the final product. It takes away from flow of the story, especially in the audio book.
I appreciate the authors story, having been a part of the GWOT in the IC. Just think the reliance on redacted sections took away from parts of the story and told me a lot about the author.
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- Bailey Verser
- 03-24-25
Stop B******g, Start a Revolution!
Great story, even greater message. Tracy has embraced her mission to embolden women and make positive impact. Truly inspiring!
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- Link
- 04-28-24
Eye Opening
I was raised by a single mother. No men around to taint my vision of women. I moved around a lot that I attended over 13 different schools. I hated the men my mother dated. This book enlightened me on some of the experiences women face at federal levels that my poor mother faced as a factory worker. The book has adventure and excitement and maybe one day I'll get to listen to the unabridged version with all its clearances. This book also makes me reflect on how ignorant I am that some men believe that women are just incapable because they are women. Insane. What a great book about an unexpected spy.
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1 person found this helpful
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- annicka weber
- 05-24-20
I support your revolution!
Thank you for writing your inspiring message it is good to hear and for those of us who can relate it’s good to know we’re not alone.
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- Sherry Zbierajewski
- 04-03-20
Surprise - Something Out of the Ordinary!
I like her view of events we are familiar with. Also the things she did and places she went to. She shows us the differences and similarities between the FBI and CIA.
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