Synopses & Reviews
Candice DeLong has been called a real-life Clarice Starling and a female Donnie Brasco. She has been on the front lines of some of the FBIs most gripping and memorable cases, including being chosen as one of the three agents to carry out the manhunt for the Unabomber in Lincoln, Montana. She has tailed terrorists, gone undercover as a gangsters moll, and posed as the madam for a call-girl ring. Now for the first time she reveals the dangers and rewards of being a woman on the front lines of the worlds most powerful law enforcement agency.
Now retired, Agent DeLong offers a day-in-the-life glimpse of her work as a field profiler, one of the most fascinating and challenging branches of the FBI. She traces the unusual career path that led her to crime fighting, and recounts the incredible obstacles she faced as a woman and as a fledgling agent. She takes readers step by step through the profiling process and shows how she helped solve a number of incredible cases. The story of her role as a lead investigator on the notorious Tylenol Murderer case is particularly compelling. Finally, she gives the true, insiders story behind the investigation that led to the arrest of the Unabomber -- including information that the media cant or wont reveal. A remarkable portrait of courage and grace under fire, Special Agent offers a missing chapter to the annals of law enforcement and a dramatic and often funny portrait of an extraordinary woman who has dedicated her heart and soul to the crusade against crime.
Review
If you judge by TV shows like "The X-Files" and movies like "Silence of the Lambs," women FBI agents are solitary types who rarely smile. And as for profilers -- those agents who construct psychological descriptions of perpetrators by analyzing aspects of their crimes -- well, you know they actually get inside the heads of serial killers and other sick maniacs. That, of course, makes them even more haunted than your run-of-the-mill crime fighter who's seen things, terrible things, that keep her lying awake at night in her lonely room.
Candice DeLong, a pint-size, wisecracking single mom who was among the first generation of women to graduate from the agency's Quantico academy, knocks over that stereotype with one kick of her well-trained foot. A former psychiatric nurse who decided she "wanted to be out on the front lines, battling evil with the troops," DeLong not only became one of the agency's first profilers, but also worked undercover (posing as a gangster's date, among other choice roles), followed terrorists, saved children from pedophiliac kidnappers, investigated the Tylenol Murderer, and staked out the Unabomber. During her off hours, she served hot dog lunches to her son's elementary school class and wallpapered the Victorian house she bought in an "idyllic" Chicago suburb. (Her two worlds did sometimes collide: DeLong's jacket slipped open in the lunchroom, prompting one of the kids to shout "Seth's mommy has a gun!") Oh, and she helped track down a serial rapist who was terrorizing her neighborhood.
Although it's short on suspenseful crime-detection yarns, DeLong's memoir is still a page-turner, a surprisingly buoyant account by a woman who just loved her job (she's now retired). Special Agent is packed with the fascinating lore of law enforcement -- that white people commit most mass murders, that the local cops' dislike for a federal agent will be significantly ameliorated once they learn she's a nurse (cops love nurses, she explains) and so on. DeLong had a reputation for dishing out sassy comebacks to cursing suspects ("That's Miss Federal Pig to you" is my favorite, but "Well, I'm not the one wearing handcuffs" is pretty good, too), but she was also the consummate diplomat. Special Agent offers a model account of how to behave when you're a woman pioneer in what's long been a male preserve. Though she recognizes the prejudice and injustice of the sexism she meets, DeLong works hard, stands up for herself without scolding, picks her battles shrewdly, forms warm alliances with the good guys, and heartily supports the other talented women agents she meets. After the past few years of embarrassing debacles at the FBI, that DeLong managed to thrive there is the best press the agency has had in a long time. Laura Miller, Salon.com
Review
". . . This fascinating book on the life of a remarkable FBI agent ranks with the best law enforcement stories . . ." (Ken Follett, author of The Hammer of Eden)
Synopsis
Called a real-life Clarice Starling and a female Donnie Brasco, DeLong has been on the front lines of some of the FBI's most gripping and memorable cases. Now retired, Agent DeLong offers a "day-in-the-life" glimpse of her work as a field profiler, one of the most fascinating and challenging branches of the FBI. 8-page photo insert.
Description
Includes bibiliographical references (p. [289]-290) and index.
About the Author
CANDICE DELONG was, until her retirement in July 2000, the head field profiler in San Francisco for the FBI. She has served as the liaison to the Bureaus world-famous Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico and, as a member of the former Child Abduction Task Force, lectured widely on such issues as protecting women and children and preventing sexual abuse.