How could I possibly pass up a book with such a trendy title these days—Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life? And the subtitle—A Former CIA Officer Reveals Safety and Survival Techniques to Keep You and Your Family Protected—just grabbed my attention. I got really curious about what we could change in our lives, since I do have a bit of a paranoid streak in my personality.
However, literally on the first few pages, it becomes clear that the author, Jason Hanson, was indeed an officer, but not exactly with years and years of training and service—he worked for just under seven years before deciding to ditch it all and start his own business, where he now teaches people how to protect themselves using these “spy techniques.” To be fair, though, he has also appeared as a security expert for many well-known companies, including The Wall Street Journal.
In short, I was drawn in by the title and the author’s biography, and I ended up reading the book. Thankfully, it’s not very long. Formally, the author divided it into several chapters covering various useful/dangerous aspects of our lives. But there’s not much that’s actually useful, and the helpful advice boils down to just a few tips: stay alert and know your surroundings.
The rest… well, it’s quite questionable material. First off, it’s clear that the book itself isn’t very practical. It feels more like a big advertisement for the course that the author runs. There are these teaser fragments: “Look at what I can teach you, but without training, you won’t get far.” And I just don’t believe that an ordinary person can easily learn how to hotwire cars or pick locks based purely on written descriptions. Yes, exactly—there’s not a SINGLE illustration in the book, yet there’s a whole section on how to use lockpicks to open locks.
And that brings up the second problem: most of the advice won’t be relevant to your everyday life. Sure, you might face a robbery, an attack, or even an attempted kidnapping, and basic tips on how to resist those are useful. But how many people really need to know how to pick locks, “disappear from the world” (unless you’re a drug lord), or seriously prepare for an apocalypse?
So, the truly useful advice is mostly just common sense. Or, like learning how to escape from zip ties on your wrists and ankles (and even then, without practicing with an instructor, I’m not sure how easy it is to understand just by reading the text). Maybe it’s because I’m a bit of a paranoid person and I’m always on alert anyway.
But honestly, I can’t recommend this book to anyone. While it’s somewhat interesting, it’s largely useless in everyday life.
My rating: 3/5
 | Jason Hanson “Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life: A Former CIA Officer Reveals Safety and Survival Techniques to Keep You and Your Family Protected” | buy |
