Dayna baer biography of martin

(Crown, $26)

“Can one find true love in the CIA?” asked Joseph Kanon in The Washington Post. For former covert agents Bob and Dayna Baer, the answer turned out to be an unequivocal yes.

Dayna was a rising agent trained in weapons use, deep-cover operations, and how to kill someone using a sharp pencil when she was assigned to monitor a safe house in Sarajevo and met “Bob” (the use of last names was prohibited).

Dayna and Bob were both married, but, as spies do, they eventually fell in love—after a drive along the French Riviera and a bit of hiking in the Swiss Alps. The couple’s “breezy, often fascinating” new memoir tells a dual story that’s part romance, part a collection of the kind of tradecraft details that are “catnip for any fan of espionage fiction.”

Even so, theirs is a cautionary tale about spy work’s false promises, said David Rohde in The New York Times. Both agents experienced plenty of the