Rating: 
Summary: A remarkable account of courage and fidelity.
Review: A lot of people may think that this book doesn't give enough information to learn off of, i think it is a great book. It shows what woman had to go through to surrvive the FBI and its' dominate males. It is a reality book that focuses it content on Candice's expertise (Child Abduction, rape, profiling, other sexual abuse). The book is so real life and you get to share Candice's emotions as she works as an FBI agent. She is also a single mother trying to protect her son from the sorbid underbelly of the world. I couldn't put the book down! It is very exciting and you can read it in days! I highly recommend this book to any female (or male) interested in joing the FBI, or if you just want a fun book to read.
Rating:
Summary: An incredible profile of dedication and compassion
Review: Candice Delong tells it like it is. This book held me riveted and page turning. I could not put it down. Ms. Delong exemplifies a woman who is dedicated to justice and the right thing to do. At great personal expense Delong did her job. However, as a mother, she had her priorities clearly defined. Delong's son was her greatest priority. The part about the Unibomber wearing her son's coat touched me deeply. This lady is indeed a national hero. In all the turmoil that America is involved in, it is wonderful to read about a woman who has made a difference in so many lives. Courage, integrity, and ethics all apply to this amazing woman.
Rating:
Summary: An incredible profile of dedication and compassion
Review: Candice Delong tells it like it is. This book held me riveted and page turning. I could not put it down. Ms. Delong exemplifies a woman who is dedicated to justice and the right thing to do. At great personal expense Delong did her job. However, as a mother, she had her priorities clearly defined. Delong's son was her greatest priority. The part about the Unibomber wearing her son's coat touched me deeply. This lady is indeed a national hero. In all the turmoil that America is involved in, it is wonderful to read about a woman who has made a difference in so many lives. Courage, integrity, and ethics all apply to this amazing woman.
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: The Story of a Woman in the FBI
Review: From 1980-2000, Candace DeLong was a highly respected agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now retired from the agency, DeLong no longer has to abide by confidentiality rules. Teamed up with Elisa Pedrini, DeLong chronicles her career as a woman in the FBI.Candace joined the agency at a time when few women were considered for the job. Sexism and harassment were the accepted norm back then. Like many women in male-dominated occupations, DeLong had to work twice as hard as male rookies to earn the respect of her superiors. In "Special Agent," DeLong describes many of the cases on which she worked including the Tylenol tampering case of Chicago. She was also on the front-line as profiling became a valid tool in crime solving. In fact, one editorial quote on Amazon compares her to Thomas Harris' popular character, Clarice Starling. DeLong doesn't discuss much of her private life, yet she is very candid about her work experiences, both praising and criticizing those within the Bureau. I figured there would be a lot of camaraderie, but I was also surprised to read how petty and competitive the agents can be as well. My favorite portion of "Special Agent" discusses DeLong's involvement in the Unabomber case. She was part of the surveillance team in Montana and was responsible for detaining Ted Kaczynski while other agents searched his shack. The dialogue and interaction between the two described here is completely fascinating. The details and pacing of the book held my attention the entire time. The subject matter may be tough for some. However, these are true stories within the FBI, and can't be sugarcoated. "Special Agent: My Life on the Front Lines as a Woman in the FBI" is an interesting book. Readers will be fascinated by the lenient glance into the files of the FBI. DeLong is an incredibly brave woman and her story is worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: TOO MUCH FLUFF, NOT ENOUGH SUBSTANCE
Review: I had high hopes for this book since I had read such glowing reviews of it on Amazon. However, there is really very little substantive information in here. I hoped on using it in a course on Criminal Justice that I am teaching in the Fall. I am still using the book, but will have to work harder filling in the analytical gaps that DeLong leaves out...Sure -Special Agent- is a memoir, and thus I am willing to grant the author a fair bit of novelistic license, but she seems to wholly neglect the social processes that are involved in actually solving crimes. From reading her account, one gets the impression that crimes somehow just miraculously solve themselves. Her insights on being a woman and in the FBI are the book's strongest points, and she is also good on rape/sexual violence and profiling. But she is completely uncritical when it comes to things such as the the 'war on drugs' and asset forfeiture laws. She seems to just take it for granted that these laws fall within the realm of "civil" rather than "criminal" violations, but doesn't tell us why this should be the case. This is a fine book for people who believe in shows like 'Cops' and 'America's Most Wanted' and want something comforting to read before they go to bed, but for those of us who would like a more realisitic and thoughtful (rather than emotional) take on the criminal justice system, we will have to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC !!
Review: I read "Special Agent: My Life on the Front Lines As a Woman in the FBI" (along with other books) to gain a better understanding of the FBI before applying for employment with the agency. Although much of the book is interesting, there is too much speculation, conjecture, and rambling by Delong. Not too bad, and not great either.
Rating:
Summary: Puzzled, fascinated, disappointed...
Review: I saw Ms. DeLong speak at a local university. I wish I'd read this book beforehand, because I would have posed some tougher questions than those she answered. I was puzzled by Ms. DeLong's attitude toward firearms. She was all for the idea that she could carry one--in fact, she detailed how she felt "honored" when her father gave her one upon her graduation at the FBI Academy. Yet, she seems to be completely opposed to the idea of private citizens owning a firearm. She took a couple of very cheap shots at the NRA, as if blaming them for the actions of the scumbags she helped put in jail...Is she implying that only law enforcement officers should be allowed firearms? Pretty scary proposition, if you ask me, and it demonstrates a pretty poor understanding of the rights she was sworn to protect!
I am sympathetic to the notion that Ms. DeLong likely endured alot of crap that was totally unnecessary as one of the few women in the FBI at the time of her training and assignment...I found myself scratching my head several times during this book.
The book was fascinating in several respects: it had a fast pace, which kept pages turning, the firsthand perspective helped the story come alive, and the criminals themselves...whew! The more I read about some of these creeps, the more painful ways I kept thinking up to punish them for their crimes.
Overall, I give this book 2 stars out of 5, because of the often contradictory notions put forth in it. If you can separate the wheat from the chaff, it's a great book to read for fun. If you are looking for serious information on the FBI, profiling, etc., look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Lock your doors, pull down the shades
Review: I'm even MORE paranoid than I was before now that I've finished Candice DeLong's book. Her tales of the cases she's been involved with are truly intriguing and often chilling. However, if you're looking for an inside scoop on the FBI, you certainly won't find it here. DeLong doesn't offer any suprising revelations about the hardships of being a woman in this blue-suit environment, nor does she give her reader any critical analysis of the inner workings of the FBI. But, it is a very entertaining (if unsettling) read. At the end of the book, DeLong offers some tips on lessening your chances of becoming a crime victim, but the overall message of the book seems to be a rather doomed one: crime happens, and it happens to people like you and me for no real reason at all.
Rating:
Summary: an adrenaline filled read
Review: It's true what some of my fellow reviewers have said about the organizational quirks and the unspectacular prose, but I have to say that this book still makes for a riveting read. Delong may seem a bit puffed up about herself at times, but I think that's our jaded view of females in male jobs nowadays. Considering what a pioneer she was as one of the first female agents (not to mention an Irish Catholic divorcee with a young son), I think we could be a bit more generous. The opening few chapters are very engaging -- they describe dozens of big cases that she helped break or observed first hand. Though it's not the author's fault, it was overwhelming to read about the number of sex offenders and crazed killers who prowl around in our country. Her final chapter gives many good tips at coping with daily situations that have the potential to turn into life threatening ones. I wish the editor or the author had taken out some of the repeated stuff (her occupation as a psych nurse and many double and triple mentions of explanatory material from earlier chapters). Some of the chapters are quite funny too -- the Candy chapter on the "prostitute ring" is memorable for its zany staging and final outcome. I really enjoyed reading first hand about FBI culture. This book is not without it faults, but on the whole it was by turns engrossing, inspiring and sobering.
|
