Blowing My Cover: My Life As a CIA Spy

Alexis K. Albion

Moran provides an unusually candid glimpse into the operational training and culture of America's clandestine services -- rare in itself, and even more so from a female perspective. But this glimpse is intensely personal and takes place within the familiar story of a young woman's journey toward emotional fulfillment. We learn a good deal about the ins and outs of spy work, but we learn more about Moran herself, her own misgivings about the spying profession and, above all, her unhappy love life.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

When Harvard grad Moran entered CIA training in her late 20s, her expectations had more to do with Harriet the Spy and James Bond than with drudge work or service; the reality, as she represents it in this memoir of her training and case work, was a sexist environment filled with career-oriented, shallow people, "an elaborate game for men who'd never really grown up." Beginning in 1998 as a case officer in Macedonia, Moran finds the work dull and admittedly achieves little of note in her brief career; smooth writing and wit regarding the humdrum mechanics of spookdom-from having her alias's credit card rejected for nonpayment to the thousands of little lies she must invent and remember-carry the book. Her apprehension about preying on people from cash-poor economies with bribes is easily overcome; a boyfriend in Bulgaria helps ease her loneliness. During the events of 9/11 neither she nor her field boss have any idea what is going on ("We worked for the CIA for chrissake. Shouldn't we have known?"). Though Moran is a likable spy, the wait for significant insights or breakthroughs goes mostly unrewarded for writer and reader alike. Expressing disillusionment with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, frustration with excessive bureaucracy and desire for a more fulfilling personal life, Moran simply quits one day. Agent, Douglas Stewart at Sterling Lord Literistic. (Jan. 10) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

After graduating from Harvard, Moran applied to the CIA with romantic visions of becoming a spy but did not follow up on her application for another five years. Here she describes the CIA indoctrination program in great detail and quickly reveals how unglamorous-and lonely-life in the CIA really is. The most difficult aspect for Moran was the need to lie to friends and family to maintain her cover. Moran spent most of her five-year stint in Macedonia developing contacts following the Bosnian conflict. Her sense of isolation was exacerbated by increasing anti-American sentiment during that time. Just as it is getting really interesting, the book ends rather abruptly with a naval-gazing 9/11 diatribe, a description of her romance with the man who would become her husband, and her decision to "blow her cover" and leave the CIA. Nevertheless, Moran's former superiors should tap her observational skills, keen intellect, and strong writing to critique the broken system and help move the CIA forward. Recommended for most collections.-Karen Sandlin Silverman, CFAR Ctr. for Applied Research, Philadelphia Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The story of a reluctant CIA case officer, told with brio and dark humor by the ex-spy herself. Since she knew she was a pretty good liar, Moran decided to join the CIA. She was also a serious Type-A overachiever, and that fit the profile as well. Helped by bona fides including Harvard, a Fulbright fellowship and a year abroad in Bulgaria, she aced the interview process, but immediately began to suffer misgivings. This would not be a woman-friendly world, she realized; her foreign-born boyfriend would have to be jettisoned, and the agency was bound to be a place rife with petty bureaucratic aggravations. Though Moran never mentions the agency's unsavory reputation, she does admit to being troubled "about the morality of harrying down-on-their-luck foreigners into spying for the United States"-which is pretty much her basic job description. Case officers are not exactly spies; they recruit spies. The memoir's first half chronicles Moran's months in the agency's training program, a stress-filled series of mental and physical tests (including what amounts to torture) that drive home the all-encompassing insularity of life in the CIA, with its culture of paranoia. The author brings a measure of baleful comedy to the proceedings until the narrative hits her posting in Macedonia, where her work becomes increasingly dismal, weighed down by banal paperwork, loneliness, careworn espionage targets and operatives on the scam. Her surroundings also leave Moran appalled and depressed, particularly in Kosovo: "a polluted swath of post-communist wasteland." Melancholy hangs over the text like a long stretch of bad weather, and more than one reader will be surprised at how satisfying it is to spend timein this greasy fog, as Moran dissects a seemingly useless, spendthrift and desperate institution locked into the Cold War past. A streetwise study in disillusionment. Agent: Douglas Stewart/Sterling Lord Literistic