Tracy Walder’s The Unexpected Spy is an excellent tour of the life of a woman dedicated to changing the world and challenging herself by taking the hard road, in this case becoming a counter-terrorism agent in the CIA and later a counterintelligence agent in the FBI. Walder overcame a number of challenges both before and during her time in those agencies, most notably sexism, which it turns out is particularly prevalent in the FBI (the chapter recounting training at Quantico is likely to make a lot of readers justifiably angry). The other challenge that really stands out is the Bush administration’s manipulation of the CIA’s intel in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq and the fallout from it, which I personally found more upsetting than the discrimination Walder faced elsewhere in the book. Facing all of these things without backing down, Walder’s commentary made the book all the more engaging. A bit of warning though, because the CIA missions Walder worked on are still very recent, there are a number of redactions in those chapters in the form of black bars instead of text, with some redactions appearing quite lengthy. Personally I didn’t mind it all, but I feel I have to include that caveat for readers who may be expecting a lot of juicy details. There’s still plenty of meat, just not as much as some may want. Overall, an excellent read which I highly recommend (though with that caveat).

Many paragraphs in the memoir were redacted due to CIA Committee Review which leads me to wonder how the missing content would add to the story. However, the stories and reflections that were left were still both intriguing and inspiring, especially for any young women considering a career in the US Intelligence Community.