Rating:  Summary: Inconsistent, could be better Review: DeLong's attitudes toward guns are deeply ambivalent and confusing. On the one hand, she is so against guns that she demonizes those who are "pro-gun." She claims that "in the Bureau, at least, few men will admit it" but "the truth is" that law enforcement agents often have an antipathy toward guns and see them as a necessary evil. Among agents, there's an "undeniable bad element" who see their weapons as manhood organ extensions. She says you won't find many cops and agents "out campaigning on behalf of the NRA." In describing her son's attitude toward guns, she finds that his being "as opposed to handguns and the NRA as any cop or agent I know" is "an entirely sane view." If you are pro-NRA, DeLong sees you as wrong, bad, and less than sane. Yet DeLong, in comparing her small size to larger-bodied male agents, quotes herself as saying, "You're bigger than me, but I guess you didn't notice that our guns are the same size." When her father gave her a revolver, she "felt profoundly honored. It was as if he had bestowed the keys to the world on my generation of women." She says that when she graduated from the FBI Academy, "I wore my handbag (gun purse) proudly." On the back cover of the hardback, the author picture emphasizes the gun she is "packing." In other words, she can identify with her guns, but if you own a gun, you're crazy. There are also problems with DeLong's use of statistics. She says that sexual assault murder is most often same-race, white on white 55%, black on black 24%, "and so on," with 15% of black offenders targeting white victims. She doesn't footnote her reference source (except "DOJ statistics"), and doesn't supply the table she was using. The statistics may vary depending on whether she's using the single victim/ single offender tables (as are used in the published statistics _Crime in the US_). DeLong may have preferred to use the 2000 statistics on general murder; relevant to the case she mentioned, if you're a sole white victim, there's an 86% chance your sole killer of known race will be white. She also relates the story of how, in two periods of her life when she thought she needed extra money, she broke a firm FBI rule and moon-lighted as a nurse. At least once, she lied to another agent who saw her in the hospital that she was working undercover. She told other agents she was doing "volunteer work" as a nurse. Yet she's more concerned with finding out who turned her in, than reflecting on why she violated FBI rules and lied to fellow agents. The book is, generally, interesting. It has many sad passages on how senior agents, at least at first, strongly resisted the idea of women agents and assigned them humiliating tasks. She also reveals that much FBI work involves waiting around the office playing office politics and, yes, eating doughnuts.
Rating:  Summary: Powerful details about a powerful agency Review: The author presents a riveting account of her experience with the world's most powerful law enforcement agency. Readers get a rare peek into the inner workings of the agency and the challenges that FBI special agents must overcome to carry out their important and exciting work.
Rating:  Summary: Good autobiography, some concerns about details Review: I general, I enjoyed the book a great deal. Many of the everyday details were quite nifty.Unfortunately, my radar perked at pages 240-41 with a wildly erroneous description of "Dungeons and Dragons" and the hobbists that play it. I am deeply troubled that the agent _in charge of_ this part of the Unabomber investigation badly misunderstood what she was investigating. There several points where the narrative moves around chronologically with few signposts to keep one oriented in time and place.
Rating:  Summary: Worth the Money Review: I bought this book because I happened to see it on a library shelf and thumbed through it. I could hardly put it down, but it wasn't my local library, so I couldn't check it out that day. I was so intrigued by it I just clicked into Amazon.com and bought it immediately. It's written in a wonderful flowing style that takes you right into her world. I'm also in a similar occupation and have been doing it since 1989, so I related well to her problems. But it was more than that, it's just a plain good read! Warning: it can be a bit graphic at times, about PG 13 level.
Rating:  Summary: Women in the FBI Review: This book is fun reading. It is very intertesting and cover a lot of cases that the FBI has handled. I highy recommend this book if anyone is interested in the FBI. The one thing which i really did not like was that it jumped from one thing to another. But the rest of the book is good. I actually Candice in person. That is what inspired me to read it. Overall it is a pretty good book.
Rating:  Summary: Women in the FBI Review: This book gives a good insight on how the FBI worked back in the 1980's. I thought it was a very good book. Miss DeLong seemed to have a lot of great cases. She makes the book very intresting. The one thing that i did not like about the book was the way it was organized. It jumped from one thing to another. Then back again to where it picked off. Over all the book is great and i highly recommend it to anyone who is interted in joining the FBI.
Rating:  Summary: A fun, fast read Review: I had read the portion of this book that was reprinted in Reader's Digest a while back, and that prompted me to read the entire book. It's a fun read, and a good way to spend some time. If you're looking for in-depth information about FBI procedures and cases, this ain't the one to get; but for an overview, it's not bad. One criticism I have is that it's not very well organized, in my opinion; it jumps around chronologically, which just gets annoying. (One chapter tells of her cash problems and breakup with her fiance; the next chapter talks about she and her fiance posing as husband and wife during the Unabomber case.) There was no good reason for the organization of the chapters, and it detracts from the overall story. But I'd still recommend reading it.
Rating:  Summary: awsome!!! i met Candice today at school!!! Review: i don't need to read the book, because i met Mrs. Candice Delong today and she was awsome! alot of fascinating stories about her life which ranged from the unabomber investigation to the bust of america's most well known terrorist group prior to September 11. she is also the true inspiration behind Claris in Silence of the Lambs.
Rating:  Summary: Compelling Review: As a woman attorney & criminal justice instructor I was fascinated by this book. Criminal justice is still a man's world, women are often considered to just be playing at it in order to meet cute guys or they are lesbians. I thought Ms. Delong told it in a fair, nonjudgmental manner. Exciting stories kept me turning the page!
Rating:  Summary: Finally a book about a female in the FBI Review: This is the best book about the FBI that I have read yet. It reads just like a novel and captured my attention from begining to end. The best part about the book is that it is from the perspective of a female FBI agent. All of the other books are from a guys perspective and it was nice to read about a woman in the FBI for once. This book will help out women who want to get into the FBI and don't know what to expect.
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