I Was Never Here: My True Canadian Spy Story of Coffees, Code Names, and Covert Operations in the Age of Terrorism

Kirsch, a former intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, pulls back the curtain on his career in this breezy account of his near-decade-long stint as a spy. Part of “a post-9/11 wave of civically minded Canadians... [determined] to do our part in the age of terrorism,” Kirsch—uninspired by his work as a junior investment adviser—googled “How do I become a Canadian spy?” and applied online, beginning his training in 2008 as an analyst. Most of his time in the service was spent “reading reports and writing memos,” but before his resignation in 2016, Kirsch worked briefly as a member of a special operations unit. In delightfully self-deprecating passages, Kirsch explains the need for the sort of grunt work he mostly did to make the sexier, tip-of-the-spear assignments possible; describes the challenges of “online dating from off the grid”; and bursts a few bubbles for anyone gulled into mistaking Hollywood for reality—as when he compares the “constant tension between the security team and the techs” to “the relationship between James Bond and Q, except in our case Q’s devices didn’t always work and James Bond’s technical ability was closer to that of your average boomer.” The result is a surprisingly lighthearted look at a shadowy but vital government function. (Mar.)