But the Syrians see themselves as fighting for survival; it takes Val’s death to force the realization among the Americans that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is willing to break the unspoken rules of the game. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. 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.

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 Damascus Station is a breathless ride; the best laid plans sometimes come tumbling down and brinkmanship can lead to miscalculations on both sides. It is easy to identify good and evil here, but McCloskey also mines the nuances of people on both sides fighting to survive. Therein, perhaps, lies the high praise delivered by the likes of retired Gen. David Petraeus, who served as CIA director for a time, and who gushes i n a pre-publication blurb that Damascus Station “is the best spy novel I have ever read.” 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.

But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. 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. Superb breathlessly gripping thrilling & truly terrifying, written in unadorned style by an CIA agent, almost real in its details of CIA espionage in Syria, savage feuds within Assad palace, intrigues of Mideast. Highly recommended' - Simon Sebag Montefiore Former CIA Directors Gen. David Petraeus and Leon Panetta, as well as Washington Times columnist and former CIA Chief of Middle East Operations, Daniel N. Hoffman, have all praised David McCloskey’s spy thriller “ Damascus Station” for being a realistic portrayal of CIA overseas operations. Strong character development is not an inconsequential point—spy stories hinge on the characters, their motivations, their fears, their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. A terrible plot or mundane espionage action (and Damascus Station is the furthest from one) can be saved by vivid characters, but the same cannot be said in reverse. Servicing a dead drop is a relatively banal activity in the broader ecosystem of literary espionage (and almost certainly absolutely terrifying and exciting for a real operations officer), but throw in dynamic characters working against each other, and it becomes something vastly more interesting.

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.As a result, he had an easy time when CIA censors reviewed his work. “I did my own kind of filtering…I might have had one hundred fifty footnotes in there to show where stuff had already been through the PRB or where it just existed in the public domain, outside of WikiLeaks and stuff—which doesn't really count when you're trying to source things with them. So as a result, you know, they didn't touch much, to be honest.”

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 analystMcCloskey’s character development is rich and thoroughly enjoyable. Nearly every character, and there are many, receive an attention to detail that brings them to life, even if they are secondary to the plot. The analyst Zelda, the Office of Technical Services bombmaker Paulina, the Russian Volkov, the list goes on by McCloskey manages to imbue them with personality and vividness in a few short sentences, making them feel important and life-like. My personal favorite character was Artemis Aphrodite Procter, the no-nonsense Chief of Station Damascus, who suffers no fools and supports her people in the field, even if they require a punch in the mouth. 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).

Damascus Station is simply intoxicating. A vortex of love, loyalty, murder and damn good espionage." Don Hepburn If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Damascus Station is simply marvellous storytelling...a stand-out thriller and essential reading for fans of the genre' - Financial TimesThe tradecraft on display is riveting, far more so than any shoot-out. Running a multi-hour, cross-city surveillance detection route (SDR) is likely thrilling in practice, but does not on first glance make for riveting reading. Yet, McCloskey brings the reader along through every twist and turn, offering a glimpse, albeit incredibly limited, of what it must be like to be an Operations Officer in a hostile environment.