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Robert Baer was one of the most accomplished agents in CIA history. Over several decades he served everywhere from Iraq to New Delhi and racked up such an impressive list of accomplishments that he was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal. But if his career was everything a spy might aspire to, his personal life was a brutal illustration of everything a spy is asked to sacrifice. He had few enduring non-work friendships, only contacts and acquaintances. His prolonged absences destroyed his marriage, and he could never be more than a stranger to his children. Sworn to secrecy and constantly driven by ulterior motives, he was a man apart wherever he went. Dayna Williamson was just a California girl, born into a comfortable lifestyle, looking for adventure and a way to serve her country. When she joined the CIA, she was initially tasked with Agency background checks, but the attractive Berkeley graduate quickly distinguished herself as someone who could thrive in the field, and was soon tapped to serve in some of the world’s most dangerous places. Overseas she discovered an internal strength and resourcefulness she’d never known….but she, too, found that success as a spy went hand in hand with a crumbling personal life–her marriage ended, her parents became distant, and she lost touch with friends who’d once meant everything to her.

When Robert and Dayna met on a mission in Sarajevo, it wasn’t love at first sight. They were both too jaded for that. But there was something there, a spark. And as they spent time together, they began to open up, to trust each other like neither had trusted anyone before. And, improbably, somehow these two people who’d all but given up on any hope of a life beyond “The Company,” found themselves falling in love. Eventually, they resolved to “make it home,” to find a way to fit into non-CIA life. Their journey would, ironically, take them through Beirut, meetings with terrorists, assassination proposals, and ultimately – improbably – an attempt to adopt a Pakistani infant. Alternating between Robert and Dayna’s individual perspectives, THE COMPANY WE KEEP is a masterpiece, beautifully told and utterly unlike any spy memoir ever written. It’s at once an affecting love story, a seductive adventure, and a remarkably candid exploration of what it’s like to live as a spy.