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St. Martin's Griffin

Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception

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Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition (July 16, 2013)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250029627


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 21


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.53 x 0.77 x 8.25 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #23,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #36 in Communication Reference (Books) #89 in Communication & Media Studies #131 in Popular Applied Psychology


#36 in Communication Reference (Books):


#89 in Communication & Media Studies:


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Very informative and eye opening
"There is no such thing as a human lie detector" (p. 14). Three ex-CIA agents, the authors!, who are now working privately spill the beans on the system they apply to detect lies. This method, L-Square Mode System, focus on observing what 'the suspect' says, does and reacts, and by learning to make the right kind of questions to spot deceiving behaviour. It all comes down to body language, congruency in speech and behaviour within the subject's own idiosyncrasy. It also come down to being aware of our self-defeating beliefs and limitations to spot a lie: the belief that people will not lie to us, the reliance on behavioural myths, the complexity of communication, our own biases, the 'global' influence, and how smart we think we are.The system relies on getting clusters of deceiving information, not just individual clues. However, one of the most surprising statements is that if we can identify the first deceiving behaviour (verbal or non-verbal) in the first 5 seconds (seconds!) we can reasonable conclude that that behaviour is directly linked with the stimulus. (p. 31). Of course, the higher the number of deceiving behaviours exhibited by a person, the most likelihood of deception. One of the most important things to keep in mind when applying the L-square System is that its virtue relies on its simplicity, that deceiving clues do not always equal deceit or a lie, that the system is not infallible, that the more we practise it the better we get at it, and part of the success depends on obtaining information in a non-confrontational non-judgemental way. The authors have successfully applied this system for years, and once we go through the book and see some of their examples (especially the long transcript and examination in appendix 2), you will notice that you can, too, start spotting deceiving behaviour. The book has a glossary with a short explanations of all the specialised terms the authors use throughout this work. I always appreciate the effort when electronic books have the index properly hyperlinked, which is the case here. The main downside of the book is that is not particularly didactic if you want a step by step sort of book. Some of the things that prevent the book from being more user- friendly are: > Some of the summaries, oddly enough, are placed in the middle of a page, interrupting the narration and some of them not directly related. Why not placing them at the end of the chapter they relate to? > The amount of information and types of questions they offer can be complicated because their names and because involve different and dynamic approaches that vary depending on how the subject of interest reacts. However, there is not a cheat-sheet scheme or figure to help readers navigate the system easily. > There is no section with exercises for us to practise, with hidden solutions at the end of the book. That would have been so handy especially because the book is about spotting lies. > Some of the statements about body language are familiar to me, but it would have been really useful having some figures or photos with some of those mentioned in the book shown, but there is none. Overall this a fascinating book that it is usable for daily queries about your family, friends and co-workers, not just to learn how intelligence and law enforcement institutions operate. However, not as practical as I was hopping for. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2018 by M. T. Crenshaw
    • Great for recruiters & business owners
This is long but it I am so grateful and want to give my recent triumph with the help of this book....I currently own a medical spa. Our biggest challenge is hiring hard working, honest people, passionate about the business. Statistically we are average with the number of good hires but that is not a good thing when statistics say only 51% last more than 12 mos. Especially for lower level jobs being less. Many people just want a paycheck or want free services and could care less about helping customers and learning about aesthetics or medicine. Within the first few chapters I had already found ways of asking questions in interviews that when applied were astounding in getting the right response. A good example was when I was interviewing a woman whom I felt had amazing qualifications for my Front Desk Manager’s position. She had owned her own pet salon for over 17 years but sold it and went to work for Pet Smart. I thought that seemed a little strange so asked her why? She naturally had a response that she wanted to move to Texas, originally being from Wisconsin which was horribly cold and owning a business was just too stressful. I wanted to know more as this didn’t seem like the mentality of a successful business owner so I asked her what kind of paycheck she wrote herself each year. Her response was “my gross income last year was $80k, which I am so proud of.” 1) She did not answer the question. 2) “which I am proud of.” Is used to further convince me she was making good money.” Luckily as a business owner I know it probably takes at least $80.K just to run a business. But this was not enough for me to disqualify her and author Russell Targ says just 1 red flag is not enough, so after a few more positive type questions I asked another. ‘Tell me about a time you didn’t get along with a co-worker’. I’m paraphrasing because she gave an overly long explanation of events which in-and of itself is a red flag but within the overly verbose statement She stated “they get annoyed with me” but didn’t tell me what “they” get annoyed with. When I asked what ‘they get annoyed with’ she minimized a situation where she had the flu 4 days and the next day she went to an already committed dentist appointment to get her tooth pulled and was in too much pain so again had to call in sick. I was a bit suspicious at this point as to why her boss would be annoyed with this if she was such a great employee since both those explanations seemed reasonable. So I later in the interview snuck in an “assumptive question” about her being late to which she confessed several additional times having been late but of course had plausible excuses. I was even more suspicious at this point about her integrity as an employee so asked the question a different way, ‘tell me a time you had a challenging client’ to which she told me another very verbose story about “a client who brought in a badly matted dog and when after shaving it had lots of bruising etc. the lady gave a terrible rating.” I tried not to sound judgmental so I commiserated with her on that as a business owner how awful that must have felt. We exchanged some giggles and at this point I felt she really was ready to open up to me. I then asked her to ‘describe a bad day at work’ where she gave another story with many excuses why where she had ripped a dog’s ear by accident, the police and media was called accusing her of animal abuse, she was taken to court and her name was smeared in this small town which was hard to recover from.😳 Now I am a bit alarmed but the old me is wanting to believe her that it wasn’t her fault so Finally, I wrapped up after many other positive exchanges I asked ‘if I were to call her employer what derogatory things might they say about her’ to which she replied “they don’t like the way I do things which of course with further questioning her reply was to minimize all of their complaints.” Now, here is where I used to get tripped up. I usually have a phone interview that lasts about an hour or more before setting up face-to-face interview and that is how this one was. I as usual wanting to believe the best in everybody was mostly paying attention to the many positive and outstanding things she had to say and want to believe her excuses so immediately set up a face-to-face interview. But this time I did something differently after hanging up with her. I paid really close attention to the “cluster” of suspicious things she mentioned and by then it hit me like a ton of bricks. In every bad hire I have ever made they had answers like this woman where they minimized, evaded the questions, or had great excuses. Now while we all have great excuses from time to time the book says to pay attention to multiples. Needless to say I politely cancelled the interview. After reading this book the signs were as clear as day. I am happy to say I am now able to cut my phone interviews down to just 20-30 minutes even shorter when I see these “cluster” as the hook puts it. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2019 by jennifer anne pocurull
    • Questionable material - mostly accurate
I’ll start with my credentials first. I’m a former TSA Expert Behavior Detection Officer of 10 years. Throughout my time with the department, I was grateful to receive a lot of extra professional training beyond the usual agency stuff. This includes REID interviewing, Dr. Ekmans Mett/Sett course, Chameleon Associates, David Matsumoto micro facial expression training, and a few others. First of all, there is no such thing as “Reid College” and this has been refuted by several people who were able to show evidence of the such. The fifth estate is one example. Stating you have a masters degree from a school that doesn’t exist makes people question your candor. To the authors: Don’t feel like it’s necessary to pad your resume, it always comes out. Other than the padding of their resumes, I can tell you that the program they use is much like the one the TSA uses in its screening of passengers. I find it to be a bit silly that the authors discourage the use of micro facial observations, and I assume that’s a recommendation for the layperson. As someone with years of experience in conducting interviews, I can say they certainly help if you can use them appropriately. It’s true that we can’t be human lie detectors, but whats also true is that we can, through the use of proper interviewing techniques, register an assessment with a good degree of certainty. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2020 by Big Don

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