Zero Fail

The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service

By: Carol Leonnig

Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed, Carol Leonnig

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first definitive account of the rise and fall of the Secret Service, from the Kennedy assassination to the alarming lapses of the Obama and Trump years—from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Carol Leonnig

“This book is a wake-up call, and a valuable study of a critically important agency.”—The New York Times

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Carol Leonnig reported on the Secret Service for nearly a decade, bringing to light the secrets, scandals, and shortcomings that plague the agency today—from a toxic workplace culture to dangerously outdated equipment to the deep resentment within the ranks at key agency leaders, who put protecting the agency’s once-hallowed image before fixing its flaws.

The Secret Service was born in 1865, in the wake of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but its story begins in earnest in 1963, with the death of John F. Kennedy. Shocked into reform by its failure to protect the president on that fateful day in Dallas, this once-sleepy agency was radically transformed into an elite, highly trained unit that would redeem itself several times, most famously in 1981 by thwarting an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. But by Barack Obama’s presidency, the once-proud Secret Service was running on fumes and beset by mismanagement and mistakes in judgement: break-ins at the White House, an armed gunman firing into the windows of the residence while confused agents stood by, and a massive prostitution scandal among agents in Cartagena, to name just a few. With Donald Trump’s arrival, a series of promised reforms were cast aside, as a president disdainful of public service instead abused the Secret Service to rack up political and personal gains.

To explore these problems in the ranks, Leonnig interviewed dozens of current and former agents, government officials, and whistleblowers who put their jobs on the line to speak out about a hobbled agency that is in desperate need of reform.

Critic reviews

“This book is a wake-up call, and a valuable study of a critically important agency.”—The New York Times

“Zero Fail is an important book, one that will ruffle feathers in need of ruffling and that will be useful to legislators, policymakers and historians alike.”—The Washington Post

“Here is journalism as a true and honest public service. . . . [Zero Fail] is just terrific.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Terrifying . . . There is certainly heroism here, and there are certainly plots that were foiled, and there are certainly instances of an agency in the moment being well run and foiling an attack and chasing something down and being on top of stuff. But there is an astonishing litany of stuff they have done wrong and scrapes we have narrowly avoided in this country by the skin of our teeth and through sheer luck. . . . It just flips your stomach up and down. This is one of those books that will go down as the seminal work—the determinative work—in this field.”—Rachel Maddow

Zero Fail-great read-poor reader pf book

I enjoyed the book portion but not the Audible book due to the reader. In my opinion, the author should have paid for a professional reader. The details are there, the research was well done, the reader of this Audible book was awful-a 1 star.

History Lesson / Current Events

Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for your thoroughness, truthfulness and fairness. I learned so much from listening to this book - - it is a history lesson, an eye-opener, current events, and a realty-check. It shows the humaneness of people, especially those who have sworn to serve, protect and uphold the law, by exposing their biases, weaknesses and true characteristics. As such, for me, this confirmed that generally, those people can not be trusted. That’s a sad truth; a sad reality for many of us. I am NOT saying that there are NOT people who have upheld the oath they’ve taken by setting out to do exactly what they’ve promised to do without prejudice, bias, malice, racism, selfishness, brown-nosing, self-aggrandizement, abuse of power, etc. It’s just that when you hear about one bad apple in the barrel, it ruins all of the apples in the barrel. Unfortunately, there are many, many barrels of bad apples - - always has been, always will be. This culture of the acceptance and downplaying the misdeeds of bad apples (people) has been normalized to the point that it is systemic. It’s here to stay - - handed down from generation to generation. Sadly, this book confirms that the Secret Service is no exception.

Scary And Good

Well written, well researched and well read account of the history of the Secret Service. That’s the good part, the truly scary part is how underfunded and political the Service is and no answers in sight.

loved it!

Boy... the stuff we didn't know about the inner workings in the history of the Secret Service! It was excellently written and read. Highly recommend!

Amazing detail

Truly a must. I learned so much! It’s great to get the good the bad and the ugly.
I appreciate our secret service so much more.