I Am a Secret Service Agent: My Life Spent Protecting the President

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. (June)