Non-Fiction
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Standing Next to History: An Agent’s Life Inside the Secret Service | 2005 | Buy |
Joseph Petro joined the United States Secret Service in the 1970s and spent over twenty years in an organisation that requires both physical readiness and extreme discretion. His career took him to the highest levels of American political life, working close protection for presidents and vice presidents during a period that included assassination attempts, major foreign travel, and complex domestic security operations.
His 2005 memoir Standing Next to History, co-written with Jeffrey Robinson, gives a rare first-person account of what that work actually looks like from the inside. Petro writes about the culture of the Secret Service, the protocols that govern protective details, and the human side of spending long periods of close proximity to powerful figures. It is a book for readers interested in American political history as well as those curious about the mechanics of security work.