Brittany Butler, author and former CIA Targeting Officer, discussing her novel The Syndicate Spy

Interview of Tuesday, 2 May 2023 of Brittany Butler, author and former CIA Targeter, discussing her latest book, The Syndicate Spy. Host and Interviewer: James Hughes, AFIO President, a former Senior CIA Operations Officer.

TOPIC: Brittany Butler and Jim Hughes discuss THE SYNDICATE SPY, her novel, which is based on her experiences as a CIA targeting officer. It tells the tale of two female spies as they race to uncover terrorists' conspiracies and ultimately change the course of war.
Though this is her first spy thriller, she has been writing the book in her head for years. She adores thrillers and spy novels. But none of the books she read come close to telling what it was really like for a woman working at the CIA. So, when she set out to write a spy thriller, she created a fresh female protagonist who felt human, who navigates the morally grey areas in espionage, and grapples with her ability to do good in a world where she is the outsider.
Her heroine, Juliet, embodies all those things but she's not Brittany. She partners Juliet with Mariam—a Saudi feminist who is eager to see the Kingdom flourish under more progressive rulers—these two women take off in an electrifying, page-turning thriller.
The Syndicate Spy showcases these two strong women who display the badassery that a good spy thriller demands, but with unparalleled depth not seen elsewhere in the male-dominated genre.
The interview runs 17 minutes and includes several Q&As.
The Syndicate Spy is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Syndicate-Spy-...

The AFIO Now video series in 2023 is sponsored by Northwest Financial Advisors at https://www.nwfllc.com.

BIOS:
BRITTANY BUTLER (JENNINGS) spent nine years as a targeting officer within CIA’s Directorate of Operations, Counterterrorism Center. Both at Langley and on temporary assignments in the Middle East, Brittany spearheaded operational efforts to achieve some of the most sensitive foreign intelligence objectives abroad. She has both first-hand knowledge of targeting methodologies used in the recruitment of spies and extensive field experience in working with foreign liaisons to discover and apprehend terrorists abroad.
She is a staunch advocate for women’s rights in the Middle East and has worked for human rights campaigns in Afghanistan to protect and promote the rights of disenfranchised Afghan women and girls. Today, she assists Afghan refugees by helping them thrive within her local community.
The first in a series, The Syndicate Spy weaves a story of fact and fiction, telling the true story of female intelligence officers who stand on their laurels of intellect and skill to see beyond religious and cultural barriers to find what unites them, rather than what divides them. Brittany lives by the ocean with her husband, Matthew Jennings, three sons, and her dog, Gus.

JAMES R. HUGHES currently serves as the 17th President of AFIO. His service began January 2015. He had a career of US Government service spanning 37 years in numerous foreign countries with a particular focus in the Middle East. He started in U.S. Military Intelligence in the late 1960s and then joined the CIA’s Clandestine Service. He served overseas as a Chief of Station several times, and at CIA Headquarters in a number of senior management positions, including as Chief of the Near East and South Asia Division, in the Directorate of Operations [today’s National Clandestine Service]. He was also named the Associate Deputy Director of Operations (ADDO) at the National Security Agency, 1998-99. Following his retirement from the government in 2005, he joined EDS in Herndon, VA, as the Client Industry Executive for the U.S. Intelligence Community. After the HP acquisition of EDS, he continued to serve in a similar capacity until his retirement in 2012. His parents were missionaries in Turkey in the 1950s, where Jim spent his formative years. He is fluent in Arabic.

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