Life Undercover
Coming of Age in the CIA
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3.6 • 13 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
The instant New York Times Bestseller soon to be a major Apple TV series with Brie Larson.
'Reads as if a John le Carré character landed in Eat Pray Love' - New York Times
‘Best book of the year’ - Tom Marcus, author of Soldier, Spy
Do you have what it takes to stand between us and the enemy?
"I’m here to prevent a major and imminent attack. One that will kill children. I’m alone and operational in the country where my colleague was taken and beheaded, and every hour I’m delayed is another hour for something to go wrong - for an informant to disclose my location, for the source I’m meeting to cancel, for the attack to go boom. The fear injects my thoughts with venom."
Amaryllis Fox was recruited by the CIA at the age of 21 in the aftermath of 9/11. After an intense training period – where she learns how to master a Glock, get out of flexicuffs while in the trunk of a car, withstand torture, and commit suicide in case of captivity – she is sent undercover to keep nuclear, biological and chemical weapons out of the hands of terror groups. Posing as an art dealer, she is sent on countless dangerous missions around the globe. Each time, the stakes become even higher and the risks more terrifying. Determined to stop the masterminds, Amaryllis’s quest will almost destroy her, until she realises that the only way to actually defeat the enemy is to have the courage to sit across from them… and listen.
In this explosive first-hand account – filled with suspense and plot twists to rival Carrie Mathison in Homeland – Life Undercover is an edgy story of an undercover CIA operative, hunting the world’s most dangerous terrorists, using deception and disguises and dead drops in the night in order to protect our streets.
Revealed in never-before-seen detail, Amaryllis offers compelling insight that can only come from having fought on the front lines.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fox delivers a gripping memoir about the near decade she spent working for the CIA to help stop terrorism. The 2002 kidnapping and beheading by extremists of her writing mentor, journalist Daniel Pearl, compelled Fox to apply to the master's program in conflict and terrorism at Georgetown University. Fox's thesis work caught the attention of a CIA official in residence at the school, and she enthrallingly discusses joining the CIA at 22 and then being selected to be part of the CIA's elite Clandestine Service, where her duties included mapping the connections between al Qaeda lieutenants. In her strange new world, every colleague has a bogus identity, and Fox's description of her wedding day is surreal: "I walk down the aisle, past work friends whose real names I'll never know," she writes. Fox's work to prevent terror attacks some of which she conducted while pregnant involved tracking arms deals and took her to places like Tunisia, where she connected with a Hungarian arms dealer she later recruited for the CIA, and to Pakistan, where she convinced militants not to go through with a planned bombing. Fox's CIA life ended after the birth of her daughter, who inspired her to shed her "mask" and work publicly for peace as a community builder. Fox masterfully conveys the exhilaration and loneliness of life undercover, and her memoir reads like a great espionage novel.
Customer Reviews
Riveting
Exciting, smacks of honesty, and is beautifully written. An easy and fascinating read.