Like many people, you've probably wondered what a CIA cases officer does. Is it really a roller coaster ride of playing spy, midnight assignations, surveillance and rough and tumble encounters? What's the difference between an analyst and an operative? What's a field officer? How dangerous is the job, really? What kind of applicants make the cut? The competition is brutal, the training daunting and the work can be shockingly dangerous. This book is a fascinating look at something we've always wondered about--what's it like to work at the CIA/ Highly recommend.'

I appreciate the ability to send a rating and review for this title. I love learning about the Central Intelligence Agency in CIA 101 by Professor Millick.

Tried reading this one and it just was not meant for me. This does not mean that it is not a good book, I just was not in the right place to be reading it and have decided to not try picking it up anytime in the near future.

Full Disclosure: I received a copy of CIA 101: A Crash Course in Agency Case Officers by Professor Millick from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for possibly writing a review.

As a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State, it is pretty common for people to think I am involved in the world's second oldest profession. I'm not which is usually met with the response, "Of course you would say that if you were." So I just have to accept that people think I'm a spy. With that in mind, I thought reading this would be a fun exercise in learning all the things that I supposedly already know how to do. What I did learn, there are some real similarities between State and the Central Intelligence Agency and between diplomats and case officers. I can see why people might confuse us.

I appreciate that the author didn't try to sugarcoat his experience. Every government agency has things it can improve at. There is definitely humor and some very interesting material. If you are intrigued by the Agency, you might want to start here.

3.5 Stars for CIA 101 by Professor Millick
A story of his job at the CIA, this book was a series of essays and some were better then others. I learned some intriguing things about the CIA in this book. It was a new perspective for me on the CIA and had some humor at least in it. Not 5 Stars, but not awful ,

I enjoy espionage novels and international thrillers. I know they are unrealistic, even those written by people who have lived those lives skip the boring stuff and highlight/exaggerate the exciting aspects of the job. But even so, I am interested in what the reality is behind the fiction.

So along comes “CIA 101: A Crash Course in Agency Case Officers” by Professor Millick which promises to tell us what life is really like for Case Officers at the CIA. And fails.

Professor Millick basically tells us nothing. I understand that he is unable to divulge secrets, but this book fails to provide any facts, stories, examples, anything. It is a series of essays telling us either how Professor Millick is superbly qualified for the role he played or how other people are crushed by the bureaucracy and drudgery of their daily government job. Some of the insights: people hate bureaucracy, people are motivated by money, people don’t want to be killed, Professor Millick was a great Case Officer. That’s about as insightful as this book gets.

What’s missing? Details about training. What their “routine” job is daily once they’re overseas. Any stories about what Professor Millick did or lived through. An example of what recruiting a resource can involve. A viewpoint on any of the publicly known incidents in recent history. And I’m not naïve, I know that details of certain jobs cannot be revealed to protect people/information. But as a result, this book provides nothing, a real disappointment. Maybe that’s the whole point – make the CIA seem boring and incapable, lull our enemies into believing this is what the world’s greatest espionage organization is really like. If that’s the case, it succeeds beyond imagination.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Independent via NetGalley. Thank you!

Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via netgalley!

This book distincts itself from the other type of similar books written on the CIA by the fact that the author doesn’t over glorify or sugar coat some of the bureaucratic aspect of this government owned agency. Loved reading about the inside stories!

Professor Millick offers a look behind the curtain at the CIA and how it operations. The book is a quick read and seeks to provide readers a glimpse beyond the typical books covering CIA “heroics” and dives into the day-to-day experience of CIA case officers.

It certainly was a new perspective on the CIA and not what I expected when I started this book. I think the most surprising thing was that so many readers will likely see more parallels to their own workplaces than differences.

It was a fun, light read and I could see myself recommending it to someone who has an interest in the CIA and the intelligence world.

Thank you for the ARC!

Who didn’t dream of growing up to become an CIA agent!?
I was so excited to get my hands on this because it is so fascinating.

I enjoyed the essay style of writing. I found the commentary to be funny and informative all at the same time.
Great writing.
Will definitely buy this for my physical shelf!

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. CIA 101 pulls back the glided Hollywood glamor and shows us working for an organization full of secret agents is less exciting than one might think. If this were an extended book, I might have been a bit more disappointed, but the collection of essays was short, easy to read and, for a book about bureaucracy, pretty entertaining. Though it's categorized as a memoir, Millick tells us very little about himself because like any good spy, "I don't crave the limelight or feel comfortable talking about myself." Still, his voice is strong and comes across the page clearly.

This has been a difficult book to review. The author framed it as a “real” look at what it is like being a case officer at the CIA. A case officer is what those of us who only know about the CIA from the media might call the handler; the person who seeks out people who might have intelligence to share, recruits them to provide that intelligence and then reports their information back to the CIA.

Millick did a good job of delineating the differences between the media’s representations of the job and the reality (spoiler alert: it is less exciting in real life than it is on TV), and he portrays the organization as the real bureaucracy that it is (which shouldn’t be surprising since it is a large governmental agency, but still unexpected).

However, I had a difficult time determining the author’s point of view and I found that troubling. He repeatedly stated that he was proud to have worked there, but at the same time was rather scathing about the quality of his coworkers, their recruits and the information they gathered. This was so scathing, that I was left wondering what the author could possibly have done that they felt proud about.

In addition, there were fewer interesting stories from the trenches than I was expecting from this type of book. I understand that in some ways this was the point—the work of a case officer is not as exciting as it might seem—however I could probably offer just as many interesting and/or funny stories as Millick has about my line of work, but I wouldn’t expect them to carry an entire book.

In some ways, this book felt more like an extended exit interview from a disappointed ex-employee than an actual book, and I was somewhat disappointed by that overall tone.

Thanks to Smith Publicity for providing me with an advanced reading copy via NetGalley.

This book is well written and has good character development I just couldn’t personally get into the story and found it a little bit of a struggle to keep reading. It’s a book of all the ins and outs of the CIA. Either way it just left a little lacking for me personally. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A hysterical look into the worlds most elite agency. This book didn't disappoint. While there was some very interesting essays within the book, the authors sense of humor shines through and I loved it. It was exactly the kind of thing a book like this needed.