The tension builds as we meet a cross-section of Syrian society, the impoverished, the falsely accused, the torturers themselves who pull out fingernails, then go home from work to play with their children. For an authentic representation of what it’s like to work in intelligence, look no further than Damascus Station. McCloskey has captured it all: the breathtaking close calls, the hand in glove of tech and ops, the heartbreaking disappointments, the thrill of a hard-won victory." - Alma Katsu, author of Red Widow and former CIA and NSA analyst Whereas I remain unable to sit through an episode of Homeland or 24, I was impressed and grateful for McCloskey’s ability to integrate just enough reality. Damascus Station is simply marvellous storytelling...a stand-out thriller and essential reading for fans of the genre." Financial Times

David McCloskey is a former CIA analyst … the book is energised by his own experience’– The Times Best Books of 2023 So Far In reading “Damascus Station” I was immediately reminded of Sam Dagher’s exceptional 2019 book, “ Assad or We Burn the Country”. McCloskey offers just enough about the Syrian Civil War to get the reader up to speed and to set the scene for the plot to unfold (and make the reader curious about more). Dagher’s exploration drills down into the Assad family’s inner workings, decision-making, and the lengths it would go to stay in power (which McCloskey reflects in his story).

The author is a former CIA analyst and his knowledge is all over this superb debut spy thriller … full of the paranoia, tedium and terror of spying’ – The Sun You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. I'm here to say I'm hooked! His writing style was outta this world. The characters they immediately drew me in and kept me interested and very intrigued throughout the entire book! Damascus Station is simply intoxicating. A vortex of love, loyalty, murder,and damn good espionage.” I am always on the look-out for spy novels however there appear to be very few authors out there who have been able to capture the genre perfectly (other than Le Carre and Forsyth, for me).

His main character, Samuel Joseph, hews more to the middle of the spectrum between Jason Bourne and George Smiley, and that’s not a bad thing. He is a master of his craft, but possesses a self-awareness and self-reflection that makes him human. His absolutely verboten indiscretion of becoming romantically and physically entangled with his agent Miriam, certainly raises the stakes in the plot. That is completely the figment of my imagination,” McCloskey said in an interview with SpyTalk . “We absolutely do provide pretty basic hand-to-hand combat training to case officers, far less than anyone would probably believe, or certainly what Hollywood would portray. But I think the idea of having a case officer doing this kind of felt reasonable to me from a recruitment standpoint, that you're trying to develop somebody and do something with them. You learn about them. It's kind of intimate.” That said, there are several spots in the book where I did ultimately sacrifice authenticity either to protect sensitive Agency tradecraft or where I thought it might weaken the storytelling,” he continued. “For example, there is a sequence in which CIA bomb techs test their work on cadavers. I had help creating my fictional bombs from a couple EOD techs, and when they read this part they said, ‘this is totally insane, the U.S. government would never do this.’ I said, I get it, but this is too fun, too cinematic to cut. I left it in.” Modern spy story ,full of the high tech requirements needed to be successful in hostile environments.A huge recommendation to anyone like me who loves spy novels but struggles to find the right books. Tice’s plight would become a political tool leveraged by the Trump administration from 2018 to 2020, which claimed to be pulling out all the stops to secure his release from presumed Syrian government custody while, in truth, the U.S. intelligence community’s prevailing sentiment was he had long since died. The Biden administration has likewise invested in Tice. Its public posture, however, has been more focused on determining his ultimate fate rather than suggesting he might still be alive or his release is still possible. A daring CIA operation threatens chaos in the Kremlin. But can Langley trust the Russian at its center?

Joseph, the protagonist of former CIA analyst David McCloskey’s exciting spy novel, Damascus Station, is vividly depicted as a real person. He must navigate his own emotions, the accurately captured and ironically rigid government administrative hoops found even in espionage, and the various evil villains hot on his trail. Indeed, not even James Bond would have been able to convince McCloskey’s caricature of a long-in-the-tooth CIA support officer to bump 007 up from economy class on a flight under 14 hours, even at the risk of the world coming to an end. But it’s not the last we’re going to hear from McCloskey (and maybe Sam, too). The erstwhile CIA man has outlines for two other Syria books, and hints at a third that focuses on Russia. Mr. McCloskey, who grew up in Minnesota and studied international relations, worked as a political analyst in CIA headquarters and from field stations in the Middle East.An exhilarating debut . . . McCloskey portrays the brutal inner functioning of the Assad regime, as well as the CIA’s occasional ineptitude, while detailing such elements of spy craft as avoiding tails, maximizing dead drops, and operating safe houses. Refreshingly, as shown in the relationship between Sam and Mariam, he dares to be sentimental. Espionage fans will eagerly await his next.”