Gray Day

December 15, 2018
"Robert Philip Hanssen was the greatest spy in US history." So writes cybersecurity expert O'Neill, who, as an FBI agent, helped bring Hanssen down.Early on in this account of the notorious Soviet spy case, the author relates that he has a special gift: being ordinary, melting into the scenery and not calling attention to himself. "I was trained," he writes, "to blend into situations, to find cover in plain sight, to look unobtrusive, uninteresting, and unremarkable." That ability to "be gray," as he puts it, served him well when he was brought on to the case of Hanssen, who was nursing grievances galore about being passed over for promotion and not paid as much as he felt he deserved, along with resentment that the FBI had "dashed his James Bond dreams by closeting him with analysts and techies." All of these grievances drove him to sell out to the Soviets--and, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to Russian Federation intelligence. An expert in computers, Hanssen delivered the names of American assets, some of whom were then executed. As he recounts, O'Neill helped construct "an extraordinary mousetrap" in the elaborate sequence of events after Hanssen was identified as a Russian agent. "We couldn't rely solely on surveillance to catch him," he writes, since Hanssen was so skilled at eluding "ghost teams" and covering up his tracks. The solution was to get close, flatter, record, and "train myself to orient and decide faster than the spy" in figuring out what was going to come next. O'Neill's narrative sometimes falls into the familiar clichés of espionage, but it is valuable in its exploration of the psychology of the traitor and his motivations as well as how spies like Hanssen so often enjoy success for as long as they do until finally caught: "Amateurs may hack machines, but professionals hack people."Fans of spy fiction and true crime will find plenty to enjoy in O'Neill's account.

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March 1, 2019

Digital security expert O'Neill was at the forefront of cybersecurity early in his career, catching the infamous Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent who spied for Russian and Soviet intelligence. This account details how Hanssen's crimes were uncovered and how the lessons learned can be directed toward current cybersecurity efforts. As a fledgling agent in his mid-20s, O'Neill was tasked with helping the FBI protect its computer systems from hackers while also secretly gathering evidence against his boss Hanssen. O'Neill's covert investigation and how he cultivated a relationship with Hanssen, while also learning from the seasoned spymaster, makes for a taut and compelling real-life thriller. Arrested in 2001, Hanssen was charged with selling thousands of classified documents to the KGB. The case exposed deep internal threats within the Bureau and other national security agencies, its ramifications on foreign relations still echoing today. VERDICT Part memoir, part true-crime, this fast-paced work is recommended for anyone interested in cybersecurity, Cold War history, and espionage tales.--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2019

At age 26, O'Neill was given a momentous assignment: conduct an undercover investigation of a man suspected of passing nuclear secrets and more to the Russians for two decades. While officially updating the FBI's computer system to protect it from hackers and spies, unofficially he was gathering evidence against his boss, Robert Hanssen, who was eventually convicted in 2002. O'Neill chronicles his efforts to outsmart a smart spy while considering how Russia managed to become dominant in cyberespionage.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.