A Spy in Plain Sight

The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen—America’s Most Damaging Russian Spy

By: Lis Wiehl

Narrated by: Lis Wiehl

Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

A legal analyst for NPR, NBC, and CNN, delves into the facts surrounding what has been called the “worst intelligence disaster in US history”: the case of Robert Hanssen—a Russian spy who was embedded in the FBI for two decades.

As a federal prosecutor and the daughter of an FBI agent, Wiehl has an inside perspective. She brings her experience and the ingrained lessons of her upraising to bear on her remarkable exploration of the case, interviewing numerous FBI and CIA agents both past and present as well as the individuals closest to Hanssen. She speaks with his brother-in-law, his oldest and best friend, and even his psychiatrist.

In all her conversations, Wiehl is trying to figure out how he did it—and at what cost. But she also pursues questions urgently relevant to our national security today. Could there be another spy in the system? Could the presence of a spy be an even greater threat now than ever before, with the greater prominence cyber security has taken in recent years? Wiehl explores the mechanisms and politics of our national security apparatus and how they make us vulnerable to precisely this kind of threat.

©2022 Lis Wiehl (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Well told

The story is pretty brief but is so well written, she provides a lot of detail and insight. We loved it.

Well written and and interesting lessons learned about the perils of not paying attention to facts.

If we learn anything it’s that fact matter and ignoring them can cause great harm to our country and democracy.

Great but sometimes too much editorializing

Great story with some awesome details from players involved. However sometimes it seems the author does too much retrospective recasting or editorializing of various actions and motivations.

Narration is terrible

The narration by the author ruined this book for me . I couldn’t follow the story because it felt like the entire book was one run-on sentence .
Did the publisher ask the author to avoid paying a professional narrator? Bad idea

The insight into the operations of the CIA and FBI.

Intriguing from beginning to end. Hope the USA can prevent this from happening again to this magnitude.

Good till the ending

Bashes the FBI pointing out all it weaknesses, then at the end defends it by bashing Trump. Just stick to the story that’s why I brought it, not to hear someone’s political opinion.

Must read

Liked it a lot. I think that it was read too fast but that is only my liking

Story is good but overshadowed by a lackluster performance.

Good story and details we well researched. Presentation of some of the stories were slow or confusing due to too many name drops sequentially. Performance was lackluster. Pauses during the read as if she is thinking of how to emphasize the next word were constant and distracting. Sort of like if someone picked up a script for the first time and read you a part of it without knowing what it was or how it should be read.

Well done

As a DC resident at the time of Hanson’s arrest, I followed the initial reporting about the case, After he died recently I was curious to learn more details now that so much time has passed, and that’s how I found this book. It was factual, insightful, and fascinating. I don’t understand the other reviewers’ criticisms of the author’s voice. She reports thoroughly, and she speaks like a professional. I recommend it.

Too Bad and Too Late

You can spend significant amount of time listening to this book and enjoy much of the content. It was a mistake for the author to read her own book. I've listened to hundreds of hours audio books and tend to stay away from books when authors choose to read their own content. The content of this text seems to be well researched using many sources and various documents that have been available for quite some time. After you listen for more than 8 hours everything the author has written including her conclusions are brought into question because she chooses to express political views supported by data that by the time the book was published is outdated and not very accurate. You can argue many sides of a political question but at the end of a book that is intended to be a comprehensive analysis and history of the spy in plain sight the last few chapters really question whether or not the author has truly done her homework. I want to believe for some reason that she unknowingly sabotaged herself versus intentionally attacks readers who choose to read her book.

I strongly urge the publisher and the author to reconsider the inclusion of the final chapters in this book to preserve the hard work and obvious effort that was put in to everything that is truly historically relevant. It is unnecessary to connect modern political challenges to the content of this book.

I wish I could recommend this text. The inclusion of the final portions of the book bring in to some question the content and conclusions.