Uncompromised: The Rise and Fall of an Arab American Patriot in the CIA

Former FBI special agent and CIA operative Prouty recounts her bittersweet immigrant success story in this sobering memoir. Prouty escaped a life of chaos and abuse in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon, when she came to the U.S. in 1989 on a student visa. She earned an accounting degree, married a physician, and attained U.S. citizenship. She joined the FBI as a special agent in 1999 and was assigned to work on “an international terrorism squad.” Despite the “endemic gender bias of the FBI,” Prouty enjoyed her work at the bureau that included several high-profile cases. In 2003, she transferred to the CIA and was soon working in Iraq. But Prouty’s American dream became a nightmare in 2007 when she learned that the Justice Department was investigating her for treason. Hounded and threatened by overzealous prosecutors, Prouty accepted a “farcical plea agreement deal” that kept her out of jail but cost her U.S. citizenship. Despite her harrowing ordeal, the author never lost faith in her adopted country and was exonerated. By turns uplifting and chilling, but never bitter, Prouty’s unflinching memoir is the story of a particularly resilient American patriot. (Nov.)