I Am a Secret Service Agent

May 8, 2017
A heart-pumping account of guarding President Clinton during a meeting with an unfriendly foreign dignitary opens Emmett’s adaptation of his 2014 adult book, Within Arm’s Length. In clear, straightforward prose he describes his role and the risks, exemplifying the
commitment of the United States Secret Service to protect the president at all costs. While Emmett weaves examples
of his assignments throughout, he rarely recreates that initial tension. He focuses primarily on his ambitions, training, and career, first as a Marine and then as a special agent for 21 years, largely with the Counter Assault Team and Presidential Protection Detail. Later chapters cover the daily lives of agents, the Secret Service today, and Emmett’s move to
the CIA in 2004. Readers will admire Emmett’s discipline, commitment, physical strength, and endurance, as well as his understatement and dry humor (“Five agents cannot hold back a tide of elderly groupies” trying to greet Patrick Kennedy, he writes). However, their fascination with a career in the Secret Service may be tempered by the boredom and waiting that are such integral parts of it, and by Emmett’s overall reserve. Ages 12–up.

May 1, 2017
An agent who stood (as his 2014 memoir puts it) Within Arm's Length of three presidents offers a pared-down version of his training and career.Emmett reduces mention of family and domestic life to passing mentions, covers a post-retirement stint in the CIA in a few sketchy pages, and leaves out entirely the ax-grinding complaints about officious superiors and "politically correct" policies and practices that set the tone in his original account. What's left is a stiff but not entirely humorless recounting of how he achieved his ambition to become a Secret Service agent--sparked in grade school by JFK's assassination--after a tour of duty in the Marines. He then made his way up from investigating check fraud and counterfeiting (the Secret Service's original raison d'etre) to join the Presidential Protective Division to work both "shift" assignments and on more heavily armed Counter Assault Teams during the Bush and Clinton administrations. "Sometimes people think Secret Service agents are cold-blooded, steely-eyed bodyguards with large biceps and dark glasses," he writes. But "real Secret Service agents do not wear sunglasses indoors." As to the rest, readers can judge for themselves from his experiences and expressed attitudes. He closes with career-prep advice and a timeline that includes presidential assassinations, both attempted and successful, through 2009. A serviceable account of a tough job for tough-minded people--rewarding but with a heavy load of responsibility. (Memoir. 12-15)

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July 1, 2017

Gr 6-8-What would it be like to ask a retired Secret Service agent about serving a president of the United States? In this memoir, readers learn how after John F. Kennedy's assassination, an eight-year-old Emmett decided to one day become a Secret Service agent, a dream later actualized after a career in the Marine Corps. A member of the dauntless Counter Assault Team and elite Presidential Protection Division, Emmett distinguished himself while working for the Secret Service. The book is a series of action-packed anecdotes, as one would expect from the title. However, repeated descriptions of training, typical jobs, and expectations bog down the narrative in places. This is an abridged version of the author's 2014 Within Arm's Length: A Secret Service Agent's Definitive Inside Account of Protecting the President, edited for length and appropriateness for middle school readers. A time line of the history of the Secret Service concludes the work. VERDICT This firsthand introduction to the Secret Service is a valuable addition for those interested in law enforcement.-Seth Herchenbach, McHenry City College, Crystal Lake, IL

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