Review of Special Agent: My Life on the Front Lines as a Woman in the FBI (Hardcover)

This is the most inspiring book I have read about a woman's career since I became familiar with Ms. Jane Goodall's books about her pioneering work in Africa with chimpanzees.

Many people will see Ms. Candice ("don't call me Candy") De Long as a real-life Clarice Starling (the FBI agent in Hannibal).I think she is more impressive than that.This fascinating book recounts her three lives as a psychiatric nurse who worked with violent patients and did home health care for poor people, an FBI special agent (specializing in profiling of repeated, sexually violent offenders) from 1980 through 2000, and as a divorced mother raising a son alone.Each side of her life is equally impressive, and she is the kind of person we all should admire.She has always done her duty, and we are all the better for that.While many pioneering women in "men's" professions often were given "token" roles, Ms. De Long wanted and went to where the action was.During her career, she rescued a child from a pedophile abductor, captured a terrorist who had murdered three men, and caught a Class A fugitive.She was also present and part of many famous investigations.Her memoir will give you a much better idea about crime and how the FBI and DEA combat it.The book also contains many lessons for how women and children can avoid becoming crime victims.

When J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972, there were no women field agents.By 1980, around 4 percent of the agents were women.At her retirement in 2000, this had risen to 15 percent.Ms. De Long sacrificed a lot to become an agent.She had to leave her young son for 16 weeks for the initial training.She missed a lot of evenings and weekends with him to do surveillance.The training included a lot of harrassment (female and general).For example, she was made to fire a shotgun so often in one day that she developed a permanent injury that kept her from being able to use that shoulder for firing a shotgun again.Another time, she had to box a large man who knocked her out cold.Her starting salary was half what she had made as a nurse.She could accept that."I wanted to lead a heroic life."She certainly did succeed in that objective.She took the men on at their own game, and was proud of being called one of the "b_____s with badges."Her signature was the fedora she always wore at the Bureau.

Some of the famous cases she worked on included the Tylenol tampering, being part of the surveillance team on the Unabomber leading up to the arrest of Ted Kaczynski, and the brothel closings in Chicago.

She correctly says relatively little about her personal life.But some of the anecdotes will keep you laughing for days.When she was asked to be a hot dog mother in her son's third grade class, the children noticed that she was packing.She got a lot more respect after that, and was invited back to talk about her work.Another time, she accidentally noticed a surveillance suspect while driving around and tailed her.The team had lost the suspect.Only well into the chase did she realize that her son was in the back seat.She kept him safe while her eye was peeled on the suspect.

The profiling work will intrigue you.You will learn about all of the different kinds of creeps who victimize women and children.It was amazing how well the profiles predicted who the guilty party was.Using the profiles allowed the FBI and local police to find the suspects much faster than would otherwise have occurred.Since these are repeat offenders, lives were saved and injuries were avoided as a result.Part of the worst of this was that many times the women could have been saved if someone had called the police."If you are ever assaulted, never count on help."

The stories of the harrassment she endured from insecure males in the FBI will amaze you.She indicates that conditions improved over time.One of the most ridiculous examples was when she was sent to the home of an informant to babysit his child while the bust went down.She put up with this only because the safety of an innocent child was involved.

I was even more impressed by her work as a psychiatric nurse.Shooting tranquilizers into writhing, distrubed patients being held down by 7 orderlies was probably more dangerous than any of the arrests she did for the FBI.There she had a gun and usually lots of backup.

Her courage was most impressive.When she arrested the terrorist, she kept waiting for her partner to put the cuffs on while she had the drop on the suspect.Eventually, she looked around and realized that her partner was sheepishly waiting in the car calling for back-up.In her haste to make the bust, she didn't take time to put on her bullet-proof vest.Fortunately, the error did not lead to harm, but she took a grave risk in the process.She was astonished to find that the terrorist was more frightened of her than she was of him.

Money problems eventually caused to need to moonlight as a nurse.The moonlighting stories are very entertaining.At first, she kept bumping into agents while she was working the wards.To avoid this, she started doing home nursing in the poorest neighborhoods.This dual career eventually led to her needing to retire in the middle of administrative hearings about whether she was being unprofessional in her moonlighting.Someone should have cut her more slack.

I was impressed by her courage, her idealism, her persistence, and her commitment to doing the right thing.I hope that all young women (and their parents) who are thinking about taking on a dangerous career will read this book.You will be very inspired.

My hat's off to you, Ms. De Long!You're way more than a five star person.

Ms. De Long and Ms. Petrini have done a fine job of writing about this fascinating life, and you will enjoy what they have to say.

After you finish reading this book, I suggest that you rethink your ideas about what women and men can and cannot do.This book once again proves that anyone can do anything, if they want to badly enough.

Live up to your potential to serve others!



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