The Company We Keep

A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story

By: Dayna Baer, Robert Baer

Narrated by: Robert Baer, Dayna Baer, Richard McGonagle

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Robert Baer was known inside the CIA as perhaps the best operative working the Middle East. But if his career was all that a spy might aspire to, his personal life was a brutal illustration of everything a spy is asked to sacrifice.

Dayna Williamson thought of herself as just an ordinary California girl. But she was always looking to get closer to the edge. When she joined the CIA, she was initially tasked with Agency background checks, but she quickly distinguished herself as someone who could thrive in the field. Tapped to serve in some of the world’s most dangerous places, she discovered an inner strength and resourcefulness she’d never known - but she also came to see that the spy life exacts a heavy toll.

When Bob and Dayna met on a mission in Sarajevo, it wasn’t love at first sight. But there was something there, a spark. And as the danger escalated and their affection for each other grew, they realized it was time to leave “the Company,” to somehow rediscover the people they’d once been. As worldly as they both were, the couple didn’t realize at first that turning in their Agency ID cards would not be enough to put their covert past behind.

©2011 Robert Baer, Dayna Baer (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

" The Company We Keep is the best true-life spy story I've ever read…You'll find yourself rooting for these two vagabond spies, and you won't want their exciting and moving story to end." (David Ignatius, New York Times bestselling author of Body of Lies)

"Provides a spot-on and compelling portrait of real life inside the CIA; the periods of boredom and frustration loudly punctuated by fast-moving and sometimes frightening, sometimes amusing intelligence operations. Bob and Dayna Baer are the real deal and they beautifully capture the murky world they lived and worked in for years." (Valerie Plame Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Game)

"An emotionally candid memoir of a life few could imagine, juggling terrorists and dictators with all too real family dramas…describes how two accomplished spies trained in shooting for the heart, improbably found their own." (Jane Mayer, National Book Award Finalist for The Dark Side)

Absolutely pathetic

I have read (or started to read a few bad books before), but nothing is as bad as this book. There is no story or anything remotely revealing or interesting at all in the book. Top that off with the most pathetic readers you could imagine, including the "professional" reader who sounds like something too melodramatic for even 1940's and '50s movie theater film shorts. I really should demand my credit back.
DON'T BUY, DON'T LISTEN, DON'T READ, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY. BAD, BAD, BAD. THE ONLY REASON I DIDN'T RATE IT A ZERO IS THAT YOU HAVE TO PUT AT LEAST ONE STAR.

Boring boring

I was really looking forward to this book, but it was not worth the money I paid for it. Even I have a more interesting life than these two!! Don't buy this if you are looking for anything beyond mundane.

no good

please don't waste your money. I love spies books but this one does not tell you anything. it's more like a diary of how they adopted their daughter.
thanks

Incredibly boring

Many times the authors tells the reader that working for the CIA's clandestine service is actually rather mundane. They prove it in this book. Very boring from start to finish. These tales might be interesting if they were told to you by a friend. But I expected much more from a best-seller.

I kept waiting for anything to happen

What disappointed you about The Company We Keep?

The write-ups on this inferred a plot of some sort, perhaps some intrigue and maybe some excitement. This was an overly washed collection of journal entries from two people who hooked up in the CIA. The most interesting part of the book was...(spoiler alert) when she wanted to buy a rabbit. I'm sure the publisher made money on the piece by playing it up to be something it absolutely was not, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone except an insomniac. It was opaque.

What was most disappointing about Dayna Baer and Robert Baer ’s story?

They didn't tell their story. If they did, then they have the most boring lives ever. Missing a plane, shopping for a rabbit and not getting along with family is hardly the type of spy-intrigue promised by the write-ups for this one. I'd bet two accountants hooking up at a company Christmas party would have more drama and intrigue than this story.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of the narrators?

I would not have written this one. There was no story, nothing to write about. The write-ups for this one intentionally misled listeners into thinking something actually happens when nothing ever does. It was a solid waste of time and energy for the listener and a cheap money grab by the authors and publisher.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Betrayal. I was cheated and lied to about what this book was all about.