Book and Film Recommendations

M. Lorraine Papineau Cosgrove, Deborah G | Independently published | 15 December 2025

Hiding liquor in the car under my seat at the German checkpoint…five polygraphs…traveling the world…marrying the love of my life…and so much more…

This is how I’ve been “Living It Up” and at 97, I’m not done yet.

This is the life story of M. Lorraine Papineau Cosgrove – one of the early women at CIA. Her story is fascinating, as are many untold stories about great women from the CIA. She started at the Agency as a very young woman in 1949. The book recounts her life at the Agency as well as how she arrived there, her amazing love story, and her many outside - and inside - adventures throughout her life. She is 97 years old now and still amazing. We wrote her story together.

Richard Gough | Knox Press | 1 July 2024

The character of Colonel Kurtz in the Vietnam War film epic Apocalypse Now is reportedly the cinematic depiction of a real CIA agent and a trained killer. His name was Anthony Poshepny, but he was better known as Tony Poe. Poe was a heavy drinker, a stocky former Marine sergeant with the elite Parachute Battalion, and a CIA paramilitary agent.

In 1942, at the age of seventeen, he joined the Marine Raiders. In Guadalcanal, he hunted down Japanese soldiers. In 1945, he led his machine gun section ashore across the knee-deep black sands at Red Beach on Iwo Jima. Recruited by the CIA in 1951, he was told that his role as a paramilitary agent was to carry out the Agency’s dirty work, which could be “plausibly denied.” He was the dagger in the phrase “cloak and dagger.”

In 1961, he was in Laos, where his role as field commander of the CIA’s secret war was leading 17,000 mountain villagers against a well-equipped communist force and crossing enemy lines into China. Poe spent nine years living in his mountain hideout with his tribal fighters and absorbed sufficient shrapnel in his body to set off airport security alarms. He was awarded a chest full of medals, including two Purple Hearts and the CIA’s highest award: the Intelligence Star.

Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, Susan Carnicero, Don Tennant | St. Martin’s Press | 17 July 2012

Three former CIA officers--among the world's foremost authorities on recognizing deceptive behavior--share their proven techniques for uncovering a lie.

Imagine how different your life would be if you could tell whether someone was lying or telling you the truth. Be it hiring a new employee, investing in a financial interest, speaking with your child about drugs, confronting your significant other about suspected infidelity, or even dating someone new, having the ability to unmask a lie can have far-reaching and even life-altering consequences.

As former CIA officers, Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, and Susan Carnicero are among the world's best at recognizing deceptive behavior. Spy the Lie chronicles the captivating story of how they used a methodology Houston developed to detect deception in the counterterrorism and criminal investigation realms, and shows how these techniques can be applied in our daily lives.

Through fascinating anecdotes from their intelligence careers, the authors teach readers how to recognize deceptive behaviors, both verbal and nonverbal, that we all tend to display when we respond to questions untruthfully. For the first time, they share with the general public their methodology and their secrets to the art of asking questions that elicit the truth.

Creators: Manny Coto, Evan Katz, Robert Cochran | T.V. Series | 2016-2017

After leading a mission to eliminate terrorist leader Ibrahim Bin-Khalid, Eric Carter returns to the U.S. and finds out that he and his squad mates are targeted for assassination in retaliation for Bin-Khalid's death. With nowhere else to turn, Carter asks CTU to help him save his life while also stopping one of the largest-scale terror attacks on American soil.