In our skeptical age, whistleblowers are both loved and loathed. American whistleblowers are celebrated in movies and popular culture, portrayed by stars such as Meryl Streep (Silkwood), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) and Russell Crowe (The Insider). But in real life, they’re condemned as disloyal, self-serving, and even traitorous if they reveal the deepest secrets of the U.S. government.

Author and journalist Tom Mueller turned his curiosity about whistleblowers into a mammoth project. He worked for seven years on Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud (Riverhead, Oct. 1). His 596-page book is a history of whistleblowing, a psychological profile of the whistleblower, and an examination of what whistleblowers endure once they reveal waste, fraud, and malfeasance. He profiles whistleblowers in health care, high finance, the federal departments of energy and defense, and the National Security Agency, one of the nation’s most secretive intelligence organizations. The whistleblower’s odyssey “takes years and years, and it never ends,” says Mueller. “Even when they’ve “won,” they still have this sinking feeling that the wrongdoing has not been stopped.”

With a prominent whistleblower again in the news—filing a complaint about President Trump’s call to the president of Ukraine—Crisis of Conscience couldn’t be more timely. Mueller, a Harvard graduate who divides his time between Italy and Spokane, Washington, answered questions about the book. Here’s an edited version of the conversation:

 You write that whistleblowers “are not like most of us.” What does it take to become a whistleblower?

There’s a definite conviction in whistleblowers about what’s right and what’s wrong. They’ll say something like, “I’m a rules kind of girl.” They’re not willing to bend their conscience to suit their organization’s demands. One value they hold quite often is a strong sense of, Who’s the victim in what I’m doing? Would I do this if it were my mother or brother? It’s the golden rule, one of the most ancient and ethical of principles.

Another characteristic is a certain self-belief, a toughness, being prickly or difficult. Some of these people would be nightmares to have for cubemates.

 How have financial rewards written into some whistleblower protection laws affected whistleblowing?

Financial awards make it possible to attract a very skilled legal defense team. That’s good if you are a whistleblower. You’re going up against a phalanx of white-collar lawyers who will eat you for lunch if you don’t watch out.

It’s not payment for services rendered. It’s a payoff for lifetime loss of income. So often, whistleblowers are blackballed in their industries for doing things that may have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Often whistleblowers are shunned by their former co-workers, though they were admired before they spoke out. What’s the psychology of that compulsion?

It’s basic human evolution. We’re wired by hundreds of thousands of years of drifting across an ancestral savanna with our band of relatives. Ninety-nine percent of our evolutionary history was an extended camp with kin. We treat our own people kindly and with value-sharing and egalitarianism. But that other group drifting across the savanna may take our prey animals and even kill us.

The reason whistleblowers typically give is a higher loyalty—to make sure the company keeps its good name or that arsenic didn’t poison the water, an obedience to God and society. But within the group there’s a stronger sense that we’re the chosen ones. The violence of the retaliation is caused by the fact that these drives have deep evolutionary roots.

The national security whistleblowers seem to have the toughest time. What recourse do they have to the kind of retribution you describe in this book?

I wish it was different, but they really have no recourse. The government is able to spin their reports of fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct into treason. It’s been that way through several presidents, including Obama. It’s extraordinarily difficult for a national security whistleblower to speak out without going to jail. Anyone who raises their voice against the national security establishment is going to be crushed.

You write that “the rise of whistleblowing is an index of a society in distress.” Explain.

Many whistleblowers tell me that “I hate the word whistleblower; I was just doing my job.” Nuclear safety engineers, compliance officers in hospitals—these are arenas that if things go wrong, people will get hurt. We shouldn’t have a special category of humans called truth-tellers. We should just tell the truth more. We are drifting toward the money; we are hard-wiring that into our laws and regulations.

Whistleblowers may not be much fun at cocktail parties, but boy are they important for society.

Mary Ann Gwinn is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist in Seattle who writes about books and authors for several publications.