The Washington Times ran my On Crime column on former CIA analyst David McCloskey’s spy thriller, The Seventh Floor.
You can read the column via the link below or the text below:
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Seventh Floor' - Washington Times
David McCloskey (seen in the photo above), a
former CIA analyst,
has previously written two fine spy thrillers, “Damascus Station” and “Moscow
X,” which I covered here.
Mr. McCloskey’s
third spy thriller, “The Seventh Floor,” is as gripping and suspenseful as his
two earlier novels.
I reached out to
Mr. McCloskey and asked him how he would describe “The Seventh Floor.”
“The Seventh
Floor” is a story very close to my heart,” Mr. McCloskey replied. “At its
center is Artemis Aphrodite Procter, who, making her return from my previous
novel, “Moscow X,” is run out of the service after a series of operations gone
wrong.
She eventually
makes her way back in a very unofficial capacity to investigate the existence
of a mole operating at Langley. She is joined by her good friend — and Damascus
Station collaborator — Sam Joseph, a reunion that I feel gives this story some
incredible spark. Procter and Sam’s mole hunt quickly leads them to the bleak
reality that they must investigate some of Procter’s dearest friends and most
cherished enemies. These suspects are denizens of the CIA’s famed
Seventh Floor — the Langley executive suites, where the leadership of the
organization rules the roost. The book, more than any of my other work, is an
exploration of the current nature and culture of the present-day CIA. It
is also a story about friendship in a faithless business and to what extent we
really know our friends.”
How would you describe your CIA characters
Artemis Aphrodite Proctor and Sam Joseph?
“Artemis
Aphrodite Procter is a mildly deranged CIA case
officer with a foul mouth, zero patience, a deeply ingrained code of honor and
personal loyalty, and a bit of a drinking problem. In this novel, she is
wrestling with what she owes CIA,
having given it her career (and, arguably, her life), before being cast aside.
Must she remain loyal to a place that does not love her back? What’s clear,
though, is her unwavering loyalty to her friends. She has many in this novel
(and quite a few enemies, too), but first among equals is her old friend from
Damascus, Sam Joseph, a stellar case officer whose career fell off the rails
after he made a terrible mistake. Sam is a Minnesota boy, a talented reader of
people and assessor of risk who’s also, perhaps like Procter, impulsive and
prone to thinking with parts of his body that are not his brain.”
Is your thriller based on your experience, actual events, and/or real CIA and Russian intelligence officers?
“Absolutely nothing in the novel is based on my personal experience, except, perhaps, the sights and smells and sounds inside CIA headquarters at Langley.
That said, I did
base much of the novel, albeit loosely, on actual events. First, the book is a
modern mole hunt, so it was critical to understand how a counterespionage
investigation really functions. The novel is, I hope, to some extent an
“intelligence procedural” in which the reader is brought into the inner
workings of the CIA and
the espionage business, and so I invested heavily in researching how such
investigations have functioned in the past and how they work today.
There are many
good memoirs of historical mole hunts (and the psychology of those who commit
treason, think Philby, Ames or Hanssen). I was able to tap an exceptional
network of former colleagues who are willing to speak to me about such things.
Second, another absolutely essential bit was to get CIA and
Langley right, everything from the cultural moment down to the tradecraft and
the furniture on the actual “Seventh Floor.”
I’ve, of course,
visited the Seventh Floor many times for meetings and briefings, but now, as a
novelist, I am drawn to details that I quite frankly had ignored when I was in
the building. For example: How are the offices decorated? What food is served? I
was fortunate to be able to go back into Langley once during my research
process to refresh my memory on all of this. I also spent hours on the phone
with colleagues who helped me piece it all together.”
As a former CIA analyst, do you believe there is a “mole” in the senior ranks of the CIA?
“I sure hope not. And I actually do think it’s quite unlikely that there’s a spy working for a foreign intelligence service in the uppermost reaches of the CIA, though, of course, I can’t be sure. At least in the U.S., history would suggest that while it’s very likely that foreign services are running agents inside the U.S. intelligence community, those assets or agents are very likely to be mid- to lower-level officers, analysts or employees. I think it’s a safe assumption that, at some level, all intelligence services are penetrated by the opposition.”
• Paul Davis’ “On Crime” column covers true crime, crime
fiction and thrillers.
• • •
David McCloskey
The Seventh Floor
WW Norton, $29.99, 400 pages
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