I’ve been a fan of espionage fiction FOREVER, but admit I haven’t read much espionage nonfiction—in fact, I sort of thought all the “good stuff” would never be approved for publication. So I was a bit ambivalent about Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA by Amaryllis Fox (which I received thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review).

The daughter of an English actress and an economist from the U.S., Amaryllis grew up traveling the world as her family lived in many different countries throughout her childhood due to her father’s work. During her last two years of high school, she lived in Washington, D.C., graduating from National Cathedral. While there, she discovered Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and loved it, going so far as to “Paint quotes from its pages on my bedroom wall. The idea that our highest duty is not to follow the law but to do whatever we know to be right fills me with calm and hope and awe.” This philosophy was central to her approach to her CIA career (and possibly why she didn’t become a lifer).

When she was 17, she went to a refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Burma, working in health clinics and raising funds for the refugees. She was also a budding journalist, scoring a rare interview with Aung San Suu Kyi for the BBC when she was just 18.

Back at school, she studied international law at Oxford, then went to Georgetown for a Master’s in International Security. A project creating an algorithm for predicting terrorism was shared with the CIA, and she was recruited and joined at the age of 22.

The book has lots of stories about her rigorous training, which I found fascinating. After she got through that year, she spent several years as a clandestine officer, working in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, marrying twice and having a child along the way.

Working in the field, she was “pretending to be an arms dealer pretending to be an art dealer,” and is clear that “it’s our cover and not our weapon that keeps us form being killed.” After years of living a lie, she thinks that possibly “…living a lie hurts only so long as I keep reminding myself it’s a lie. Maybe if I just act like its real…maybe someday the longing for life without cover will disappear and my shell will just become my skin.”

IMHO, the book was well written, and I found it honest and clear about her work and her personal life. Ms. Fox was all in, for years.  When she got to a certain point, she just couldn’t do it anymore and she got out, later giving a somewhat notorious interview with Al Jezeera in which she spoke of life undercover, and the most valuable lesson she learned: the importance of truly listening.

I could have happily read twice as many pages, with lots more stories about her experiences. Five stars.