Damascus Station

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An astonishingly accomplished debut that masterfully mixes action, tradecraft lore, a grown-up Romeo and Juliet story and bags of untold intelligence about the conflict’– John Dugdale, The Times Best Thriller Books of 2023 A: True. The censors wouldn’t let me put the real-life ones in here, many of which are more insane than Sam’s.” 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 I wrote most of the novel in 2019, and since then the day-to-day fighting in Syria has declined as lines of control have hardened and the large number of foreign actors involved have pressed their local allies for ceasefires and the like. But the events of the novel take place in the early years of the conflict, roughly 2011-2013, and the war only got worse in the years that followed.”

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 an avid reader of the genre and I am sure many of its leading lights have influenced me in some way: le Carré, McCarry, Deighton, Clancy, Greene, Cruz Smith, Higgins, Forsyth, the list could go on. More recently people like David Ignatius, Jason Matthews, Daniel Silva and Alex Berenson come to mind. One aspect of the genre — though by no means important to every author writing in it — that has influenced my work is the tension between moral clarity and moral ambiguity permeating so much of the intelligence business. I love stories that have good guys and bad guys while at the same time entertaining the gray areas. I like the complexity and the ambiguity that come with the intrigue, and I hope to carry that through in my novels.”

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 Stuffed with insider insights … It reveals some top-notch intelligence tradecraft’ – Tim Shipman, Sunday Times 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.Q: Live bomb tests have been used on cadavers wheeled out on Rollerblades and suspended on IV poles. 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 an extremely effective modern espionage novel, filled with action and incident but also a profound knowledge of the people and factions of Syria, the complex maneuvers of spycraft, the gray areas, competing egos and overlapping priorities that make every day a journey through the minefield. DAZZLING DEBUT STEMS FROM DISTINCT EXPERIENCES In Syria, a CIA officer has disappeared, and presumed killed. Sam Joseph is a CIA case officer in Paris and is tasked with recruiting Mariam Haddad, a Syrian national who works in the Syrian palace. The plan is for them to work together to identify the man responsible for the missing spy. However, Miriam is a beautiful woman and during the course of the recruitment, they fall for each other. Sam knows this is forbidden by the CIA; a case officer should never enter into a relationship with an agent. He struggles to hold his distance and assumes that once in Damascus, they will see each other only as the mission requires.

Reading this book, I couldn’t help reflecting on the subsequent devastation that Syria’s civil war wreaked on her people. The multiple opposing forces and brutal authorities are all here in this fictional version of the conflict’s early days. Of course, this isn’t history, it’s fiction, but I feel like I understood the history a little better for having read it. The real-life political machinations of this confusing, multi-sided conflict make Damascus Station that much more compelling. The principal antagonists in this novel are the men and women of the CIA and the senior-most figures in Assad’s intelligence apparatus, the mukhabarat, as well as the dictator himself. But others get into the act, too, including Russian intelligence, an Israeli spy, and the jihadist rebels in Syria. The action centers on the CIA station in the basement of the US Embassy in Damascus. But the story wanders to and from Washington, DC, and to France and Italy as well. Don’t miss this enthralling standout debut, one of the best to come across my desk in recent years’ – Adam LeBor, Financial Times Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? I had one final question for McCloskey. During his time covering Syria, did his views about the country and the global response to the war change in any way?

Other details jump out at the reader as well, and I had to ask him about a few of them. True or false?