Zero Fail

The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service

By: Carol Leonnig

Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed, Carol Leonnig

New York Times best seller

“This is one of those books that will go down as the seminal work - the determinative work - in this field.... Terrifying.” (Rachel Maddow)

The first definitive account of the rise and fall of the Secret Service, from the Kennedy assassination to the alarming mismanagement of the Obama and Trump years, right up to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 - by the Pulitzer Prize winner and number one New York Times best-selling co-author of A Very Stable Genius and I Alone Can Fix It

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post

Carol Leonnig has been reporting on the Secret Service for The Washington Post for most of the last decade, bringing to light the secrets, scandals, and shortcomings that plague the agency today - from a toxic work culture to dangerously outdated equipment to the deep resentment within the ranks at key agency leaders, who put protecting the agency’s once-hallowed image before fixing its flaws. But the Secret Service wasn’t always so troubled.

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 this reputation for courage and excellence would not last forever. By Barack Obama’s presidency, the once-proud Secret Service was running on fumes and beset by mistakes and alarming lapses in judgment: 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’s in desperate need of reform. “I will be forever grateful to them for risking their careers,” she writes, “not because they wanted to share tantalizing gossip about presidents and their families, but because they know that the Service is broken and needs fixing. By telling their story, they hope to revive the Service they love.”

©2021 Carol Leonnig (P)2021 Random House Audio

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)

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.

Reading this book confirmed my suspicion's

I really was hooked on this detailed and very well written book. It deals mainly with the USSS failures and embarrassments. I learned a lot about Presidential assassins' and attempts on many presidents. Above all the "inside baseball" incites are very interesting.

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.

Eye Opener

This book is so eye opening. The secret service is in need of a lot of reforms. I highly recommend this book.

Wow! Worth every minute!

You know of and have lived through many of these security fails. This book follows and tugs the thread unraveling the Secret Service. See the through line and solutions. But only if Congress has the will to make it so IMHO.

Mesmerizing

I couldn’t stop listening. What a gem of a story. Carol did an absolutely brilliant job telling this story.

A great listen

This is a great book. Lots of interesting facts and stories about the secret service.There are several things I learned:
(1) Richard Nixon was more evil than anyone can imagine.
(2) John Kennedy and Bill Clinton were jerks during their time in office. Jerk is a kinder term but if I used stronger language, Audible probably would not display the review.
(3) The 45th president was a selfish grifter who turned the secret service into the Nazi’s SS.
(4) If the secret service spent the same amount of time and effort working on positive reforms as they do on hiding errors and back-stabbing their work force, they would be a better organization.