Casey Collins

Series · 5 books · 1998-2016

By Diana Deverell

Books in series

#0.1

Warm Bodies in a Cold War

2012

Everything starts somewhere ... For Kathryn ”Casey” Collins, that somewhere was the chillier side of the Iron Curtain one January night in 1986. On a deserted highway in rural Poland, her VW slams into a wild boar. He's road kill, she's stuck in a ditch, and the temperature's headed down, down, down. To keep them both from freezing to death, the 27-year-old career diplomat cajoles Matt, her Marine guard passenger, into a double sleeping bag and climbs in after him. A night of whispered secrets and unplanned warmth propels Casey into an accidental relationship with fateful consequences. When she messes with a horny Marine five years her junior, she raises eyebrows in the Warsaw embassy. When young Matt dumps her to fall into a honeytrap set by the Polish clone of the KGB, he risks a prison sentence for treason. Foreign agent Stefan Krajewski is suddenly on her doorstep, offering to rescue the lad. What does he want from Casey in return? Expanded and retitled since first published in 1996, "Warm Bodies in a Cold War" brings Casey to the threshold of a sinister labyrinth of seduction, betrayal and terror. Included with the short story is the first chapter of "No Place for an Honest Woman", in which Casey is drawn unwillingly into the field to begin the counterterrorist crusade continued in "12 Drummers Drumming", "Night on Fire" and "East Past Warsaw".

#0.5

No Place for an Honest Woman

2012

Junior diplomat Kathryn “Casey” Collins sits in Cold War Poland. In April 1986, she's a sitting duck. East Bloc spies are trying to trick secrets from her. Gaddafi's terrorist surrogates are killing Americans in Europe as the US Air Force readies its bombers to raid Libya. Chernobyl's meltdown will soon shower her with radioactive fallout. Casey must choose sides. A wrong decision means death.

12 Drummers Drumming

1998

When a plane explodes shortly after taking off from Europe, Casey Collins, a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, believes her lover was on the plane, but when she arrives in Europe to uncover the truth, she is plunged into a world of fear and is accused of being the terrorist responsible for the bombing of the plane. Reprint.

East Past Warsaw

2001

Casey Collins, a US Foreign Service Officer, is on her way to Berlin for an international conference on global traffic in small arms. Casey's specialty is counterterrorism and she aches for the women and children killed worldwide by terrorists with hand-held weapons. Yet, a crushing series of events demands she shift focus to solve a more ominous problem involving a missing nuclear physicist and a supply of stolen plutonium. Casey is forced back into the field to pursue a villain who threatens everyone she holds dear. From twilight in the long-term parking lot at Dulles Airport to a sunlit afternoon in a Belarus orchard, the action winds breathlessly eastward as Casey and her small band of unlikely cohorts struggle to contain a nuclear evil let loose when the Cold War ended. EAST PAST WARSAW is the fourth novel featuring Casey Collins. This is a stand-alone book, but readers of NO PLACE FOR AN HONEST WOMAN, 12 DRUMMERS DRUMMING, and NIGHT ON FIRE will encounter some old friends: Holger Sorensen and Bella Hinton play major roles, along with Belgian commandos Hans van Hoof and Ebertus Wouters. As the title implies, Casey revisits favorite haunts in Poland but the action also takes her to her girlhood home in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

China Box

2016

Where do you go when your spirit dies and you learn your best isn’t good enough? Fifteen years ago, Casey Collins’s Polish lover was murdered and she lost heart for the war against terror. After 9/11, the State Department specialist knew she’d also lost her touch. She exiled herself to tiny US embassies far from Washington, doing routine admin work that numbs her. The highlight of her day is happy hour. Nothing gets between her and her five o’clock gin and tonic. Except the ancient spymaster limping into the American Club of Dhaka, waving his cane in her face, and telling her that her godson is falling into a Chinese honey trap. Casey’s made it clear that she won’t try again to save the world. But she’s loved Woody Hinton from the moment he was born thirty years ago. She can’t deny she’s the right woman for the job. Woody’s ruining his life in exactly the same way she ruined hers. Can she stop him before it’s too late? A Macavity Award finalist acclaimed for her “sharp story telling” ( Publishers Weekly ), Diana Deverell brings her all-too-human heroine Casey Collins back to the US and into action as “an intricate chess match of espionage, international wheeling-dealing, and love plays out in Washington and Silicon Valley.” (Reader review) Buy China Box today and discover this suspenseful series of non-stop international thrillers.

Author

Diana Deverell

Author · 10 books

A native Oregonian, Diana Deverell was a US Foreign Service Officer and served in Washington DC, San Salvador, and Warsaw, before she moved to rural Denmark to write fulltime. Her latest release is LAY BARE THE LIE, the sixth book in the Nora Dockson legal thriller series, featuring a woman ex-con turned appeals lawyer. The first five books in order are HELP Me NORA, RIGHT THE WRONG, HEAR MY PLEA, JUDGE ME NOT, and OPEN THE DOOR. “Mercy Find Me”, a story spun off the series, was a finalist for the 2019 Derringer Award for short mystery fiction. and is now available as an ebook short story. Diana debuted as a published writer in 1998 with 12 DRUMMERS DRUMMING, her first Casey Collins International Thriller. 12 Drummers Drumming, her first international thriller. The latest thriller in the series is CHINA BOX. The four-book series spans seventeen years in the career of her heroine, State Department intelligence analyst Casey Collins. Diana has also written the political thriller BITCH OUT OF HELL starring security pro Bella Hinton and told in Bella’s own salty words. Bella is the heroine of “Payback is a Bitch,” a short story appearing in the Fiction River – Pulse Pounders: Countdown, edited by Kevin J. Anderson. Before shining in stories of her own, Bella played a supporting role in several international thrillers taking place from the Cold War to the present. Diana’s published short fiction includes five stories starring FBI Special Agent Dawna Shepherd which are available as ebook short stories. Dawna’s early adventures are collected in RUN & GUN: A Dozen Tales of Girls with Guns and she plays a supporting role in BITCH OUT OF HELL and three international thrillers.