Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life is another book review find; I think from Glenn Reynolds. It is written by Jason Hanson, a former CIA officer. The intent of the book is to inspire you to prepare for many of life’s unpleasant obstacles; especially people of evil intent. It serves as an outline for a good set of preparedness techniques. Everyday thousands of people become crime victims. Many could have avoided their situation by being prepared. However even the best preparation is insufficient if you fail to remain aware of your surroundings. It’s interesting that all through the history of our species awareness was paramount. But in our focus to “be safe” we are giving away awareness, our primary defense mechanism.
To give you an idea of the breadth of the material, here is the table of contents:
Chapter 1- Survival Intelligence
Chapter 2- Situational Awareness: The Single Most Important Thing I Learned in the CIA
Chapter 3- Your Spy Escape and Evasion Kit: Crucial Items and Information for Surviving Disasters Both Major and Minor
Chapter 4- Become an Escape Artist: How to Easily Escape Rope, Handcuffs, Zip Ties, and Duct Tape
Chapter 5- The Impenetrable Home: How to Criminal Proof Your House
Chapter 6- Travel Safety: Staying Safe in Planes, Taxis and Hotels
Chapter 7- How to Run Counter Surveillance Like a Pro
Chapter 8- Social Engineering Secrets
Chapter 9- How to Be a Human Lie Detector
Chapter 10- How to Disappear without a Trace
Chapter 11- The Art of Survival Driving
Chapter 12- Defending Yourself: Weapons and Important Self-Defense Tactics
I really enjoyed the book and am implementing his recommendations in my life. While much of this material is covered in more depth elsewhere this is a concise treatment that can be read in a couple of evenings and the information may just save your life. I particularly like his admonishment against the public use of smartphones. They are too distracting and this distraction can be deadly – think of folks walking in front of moving vehicles. A point that I hadn’t considered is phone use attracts the attention of people of evil intent. Completely aside from the value of the phone (or the value of its information content) when you are not focused on your surroundings you are exposing yourself as a target.
As should be expected, in a 272 page book, details on some important aspects are lacking. For instance situational awareness requires a base line of expected human behavior. However, these baselines change as you move through the landscape. What is appropriate behavior for a playground is not appropriate in a library. A superb treatment of baseline construction (including exercises) is given in Left of Bang (I’ll review it in a future post). But Gavin de Becker’s book The Gift of Fear is also an excellent treatment.
However the author’s goal is to inspire you to seek out more information particular to your situation. He gives the basics in the book and provides instructional videos and classes if you wish to learn more.
Buy this book, prepare yourself, practice the advice, and the information may just save your life.