Alex Finley worked for CIA’s Directorate of Operations for about six years in the early 2000s. Her roles took her to places like West Africa and Europe and also allowed for some time at Headquarters in Langley. Her work as a reports officer - which serves as a bridge between case officers who collect information and analysts who use that information - allowed her a unique vantage point from which to observe the good, the bad, and the hilarious things that sometimes transpire when doing the nation’s spy work.
Finley decided to take all of that knowledge and turn it into a hilarious work of fiction called Victor in the Rubble, about a fictional spy named Victor Caro who works for a fictional spy agency called the CYA. Finley followed that first book with a second one earlier this summer titled Victor in the Jungle, which sees Caro relocate to South America, bringing his whole family with him.
Caro’s adventures seem to closely follow modern-day events and highlight both the absurdity of certain situations and the choices that case officers with CYA are forced to make in the line of duty, even though the repercussions can be, well, unexpected.
Under/Cover spoke with Finley about her real life, the fake one she writes about in her novels, and where Victor Caro may be headed next.
Under/Cover: Have you always had the author bug or were you spending time at the Agency thinking about how funny some of the situations were that you were in, and that inspired you to write? How did one thing lead to the next?
Finley: I was always a writer, always. My Mom actually has a picture of me at about two years old with a pencil and paper. And she said, "There you are writing your first book." All throughout my childhood I wrote books. They weren't that great, but they were books. And then I went to journalism school and was a journalist for a number of years. I knew writing was always just something I did that was part of who I was. In fact, when I entered the Agency it was a very strange change for me, because up until that point I had always kept a journal. And then once I was in the Agency, suddenly a lot of things that were happening to me and things that I was experiencing, I couldn't write down anymore.
For a number of years, I think I suppressed that creative side, but I also slowly gathered anecdotes that were just too funny to ignore and too absurd. They were things that people on the outside would just never believe could possibly happen. I started jotting little notes of funny experiences or things that happened or that my friends shared or whatever.
So when I left CIA, I knew I wanted to write some kind of a book, and that was howVictor in the Rubble came about. The response from it was so great. It was more than just my Mom telling me it was great. It was total strangers coming up to me and sharing their stories and their experiences and sharing their own anecdotes that would have made Victor laugh hysterically. So that really wonderful feedback gave me the energy to keep going with it.
Under/Cover: Tell us about your character, Victor Caro. Why Victor? And why a man as your main character?
Finley: That's a good question and actually, nobody asked me that with the first book, which I thought was kind of interesting.
I first startedVictor in the Rubble by writing it in the first person but it didn't work. Then I tried a female lead. I just had this idea of what I wanted to write. And what I found as I was writing was that she was running into problems that I didn't want to be highlighting.
They weren't problems that I was particularly ready, at that point to juggle with myself. I had a young child at the time and all of the choices that you're making between career and children and family all started coming into the calculus of what this character was going through. And that's not what I wanted to be writing about. What I wanted to be writing about was the total absurdity and the ridiculousness of this bureaucratic system.
It was just easier to do that with a male character. And also, because a lot of what I saw when I was at CIA, and most of the case officers that I worked with and ran into, were men, though I think that's changed. I've been out now for ten years, so I think there's a lot more diversification across the workforce now than when I was there.
Under/Cover: These books are meant to be funny and they are very funny. Why this genre?
Finley: I found that satire really let me get to the heart of what I wanted to be pointing out without giving away anything classified. By writing it as a satire, I was just able to get right to the heart of the ridiculousness, which was the main point inVictor in the Rubble.
And then Victor in The Jungle focuses much more the camaraderie and the fun of the team. Satire is just a fun way to tell the story because you're dealing with the interactions of all of the characters, and a lot of it is inside of a CYA station, and you get to see how all the different players in the office interact with each other.
Under/Cover: So, is there a tie to reality to each of these adventures that Victor goes on?
Finley: Yeah, I mean, look, there are certain amounts of my own personal experiences and experiences of friends and colleagues along the way that I've twisted and turned in different ways to use them. Some of the stuff I've completely made up, and both also use a certain amount of real-world geopolitical context. In Victor in the Jungle, for example, there's a dictator involved. And I had some real-life inspiration from some actual authoritarian leaders, shall we say, who I played with and pulled some of the ridiculous things I've seen them do, and I use that to help create the character in the book.
Under/Cover: How did the situation change for Victor? In your first book he was kind of working solo and in your second book, he has his family with him, which almost feels like there could be a lot more comedy introduced.
Finley: Yeah. One of the things that I wanted to show is that working in CIA, especially if you're overseas, is not a job, it's a lifestyle. You are choosing to live in a certain way, and your family has to buy in to that. I've seen a lot of cases where the family didn't buy in to it. It didn't work very well. But when the family buys in to it and everybody is on board, you can really have a lot of fun. And everybody helps, everybody has a role. And there's a role to play in supporting the CYA officer in whatever he or she is doing, but sometimes they play other roles where they actually have to help with operations in some way. Everybody's got a part to play. And I thought that was a really fun way to look at it.
Under/Cover: What are your hopes for the series? Are you going to write more?
Finley: I have a third book in mind. It exists in my head right now. Unfortunately, it's not on paper yet. I wish it would just magically appear. I have also started another book that isn't a Victor book but is another CYA themed book. So, I'm working on that one as well.
Under/Cover: What haven't I asked you that has proven to be an interesting twist or tale along this journey for you?
Finley: That's a good question. Like I said, I've been really, how can I say this? I really enjoyed the feedback that I've gotten from people in both the military community and other government agencies and within the intelligence community, who've told me how muchVictor in the Rubble made them laugh, or how much they were able to connect with certain parts of it. And that was really great, because when you write your first book you have no idea what's going to happen when you send it out. So, to have such a nice reception and people coming back to me with such encouragement was really great. So that's why I decided to run with the second one. It's brought some really great opportunities.
Under/Cover: You do talk a little bit on the cover about the process as well, was it difficult for you to go through the process of finding an agent and a publisher?
Finley: Yeah, I got lots of rejections. You just have to keep on going. Eventually I switched agents and I have a really wonderful agent out in California now who also works with an agent in Washington and they've been really great. When you're really down they're the ones who say, "Just keep going." And you do. You sit back down at your computer and you just start typing again.
Under/Cover: Part agent, part therapist. I love that.
Finley: Exactly.
Also read a review of Victor in the Jungle, A Novel Approach to CIA/CYA by Under/Cover’s Senior Editor Bill Harlow.
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