The Company She Keeps

by Diana R. Chambers

Home from Afghanistan, CIA officer Nick Daley recruits a new agent. He grows to care for the young woman, but is forced to send her into danger... a world of danger from Europe's grand boulevards to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1593302541
• ISBN13: 9781593302542
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Aventine Press
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great writing

Did you ever read the first pages of a spy thriller and think, "This is my life?" I'm gonna guess you answered, "No." And just that quickly, you learn this is not another cookie-cutter novel that follows the same old formula. Evelyn Walker is from small-town North Carolina. It's every Southern stereotype, and it's 100% authentic. I know. I've lived in many such places. This book presents a vivid and wholly credible picture of how, through a combination of manipulation and circumstance, a small-town girl becomes a CIA operative. Watch her mature into adulthood, and see how international intrigue operates in this new, modern age. Nicholas Ross Daley is the major constant character in Evelyn's adventures. He's the one pulling the strings, sending her into dangerous assignments and destroying her innocence for the good of his nation. How can he face himself? The author has traveled the world, and knows the subjects of which she writes. I could've told you that without reading her bio, because I've read her novels. It's obvious when an author knows her subject and when she's only guessing. If she writes about a place I've spent some time in, I quickly notice just how quickly and accurately she brings it to life. The memories come rushing back. If she writes about a place I've never been, that's even better. I learn. Spend some time with this somewhat unconventional entry into the espionage genre. You'll be glad you did.

Fine Company Indeed!

"The Company She Keeps" is a study in foreign relations. In the course of pursuing her new career, and the men that she is inextricably bound to, Evelyn Walker takes us around the world, to the exotic and sublime places we dream of, and leads us into the mysterious, shadowed world of intrigue and shadowy assignations. With a subtle and personal knowledge, Diana Reynolds Chambers makes us feel as if we are there, with Evelyn, as her time within The Company... the CIA... leads her down two roads - the rigorous world of 'by-the-book' espionnage, and the wild 'cowboy' world of the modern, less traditional agent. The chronicle of Evelyn's passage to "E", the CIA operative, complete with romance, sex and danger, provides us with an unmistakeable, unbreakable read.

Lots of Mysteries in One Book!

The Company She Keeps by Diana Reynolds Chambers is a wonderful book that you shouldn't expect to be able to put down until you're finished with it. Starting in the small, sleepy town of Alert, North Carolina and ending on the beaches of Bali, there's action everywhere in between! Most of the action centers around E, short for Evelyn. She's a young girl from Alert, moves to Washington, and on from there to even more exciting places. Throughout the pages of The Company She Keeps, E becomes romantically involved with 3 spies, finally marrying one. The Company She Keeps is filled with romance, mystery, heart-break and even some geography and social studies lessons. I really enjoyed it, and think it could probably be made into a great movie.

The Company She Keeps

This is a fabulous book and a fast read. By page nine I was hook, line, and suckered in. It launches into a female coming-of-age tale, and quickly and smoothly evolves into an espionage thriller. The heroine, Evelyn (E for short) Walker, is in her late teens. Her life is sheltered, and shared with a strict, retired Viet Nam vet father and a younger wise-cracking brother. Her mom abandoned the family years ago. They live in Alert, North Carolina, population 1,273. E is not unhappy, but yearns to experience the world beyond the city limits of this wisp of a town. When the famous rock-star-of-her-dreams pulls into the family gas station for a fill-up, all wisdom of lessons learned is forgotten. And what starts as a local sightseeing trek turns into an unexpected and much longer journey. E experiences her first rock concert, fancy hotels and restaurants, and shopping at exclusive stores-all the things "city" gals do. But this relationship is just a stepping stone to more intriguing situations. E has a fresh, Southern belle appearance and trusting personality. This combination plops her into electrifying escapades in Washington, D.C., Athens, Paris, and Tehran. In each situation, she finds herself more deeply and innocently embroiled in something bigger than it first appears. Spies, arms dealers, national security systems, government politics, all have consequences in the life of this plucky young heroine. Ultimately, a fabric is woven between E and Nicholas Ross Daley, an undercover CIA operative. He must balance his duty to the U.S. government and his personal honor. In doing so, he becomes increasingly conflicted with each new task in which he is ordered to implicate E. On the other hand, E must sort through her family values and patriotism, and the loyalty she develops as she builds intimate relationships along the way. Yes, there is intimate interaction. It runs the gamut from kissy-face to smoldering, but Chambers has artfully written them just this side of too explicit. This skill is but one example of fresh writing techniques she cleverly uses. The imagery throughout the book uses all five senses. You certainly see "the pink rose looking like a ballerina's tutu," smell "the cedarwood screen," hear "laughter sounding like wind chimes on a sultry evening," and taste "chili dogs with mustard" in the park. The book also demonstrates Chambers' wealth of word knowledge. She sprinkles foreign words and phrases throughout the book in such a way that you understand or learn their meaning from the dialogue. "Gung ho," for example, means work together in Chinese. She also incorporates the latest spy lingo-"cosmic" documents, now means higher than "top secret." Chambers writes as though she knows the inside story and has experienced it herself. She describes details regarding the annual White House Easter Egg hunt; procedures upon entering CIA headquarters in Washington, D.C.; history and traditions of the Islamic religion; and the battle between

I wish I'd written it

They say write what you know. In the marvelous novel I've just read, "The Company She Keeps," although nowhere in the author's bio do I find reference to Diana Reynolds Chambers ever having been a CIA agent, this lady certainly writes what she knows about. Talk about verisimilitude! She takes the reader into a world that, in a lesser author's hand, might be the make-believe world of the James Bond genre. Instead, Ms. Chambers's has created a world of three-dimensional reality. I mean, you are really there! In the intrigue-filled corridors of Washington, the romance of Paris, the danger of Teheran. And each page literally brimming with suspense. This is a book I did not want to end, whose story and characters I wanted more of. I have published eight novels, two of them New York Times bestsellers. I have written a number of screenplays, including the Academy Award nominee "Star Trek The Motion Picture." Diana Reynolds Chambers makes me feel like a novice. Harold Livingston