The Seventh Floor: A Novel by David McCloskey
Product Details
Web ID: 20312204A Mole in the CIA
David McCloskey, a former analyst with the CIA, brings his experience to The Seventh Floor, giving the reader a feel for life within the agency. After the agency is contacted by a Russian agent with important information a meeting is set up at a casino in Singapore. When the meet goes wrong, Sam Joseph, the CIA agent, is smuggled back to Russia for interrogation. Artemis Procter had arranged the operation. Blame fell on her shoulders, resulting in her eventual firing. Months later an exchange brings Sam back to the U.S., where he finds Procter working at her cousin’s gator farm. Someone had betrayed the operation and Procter and Sam are determined to discover the mole at the CIA. Their suspects are all agents that they have worked with over the years, people who had gained their trust and became like family. While Sam has been put on desk duty, he is still in a position to gain access to files. Procter obtains a safe house for them and begins to meet with her former colleagues to reconnect and get a feel for their parts in the operation. Their hunt takes them across France to witness a meeting between the mole and a Russian agent. They are up against a seasoned Russian spymaster who will do anything to protect his high level American asset. It is a game of cat and mouse as McCloskey takes you to the inner corridors of the CIA and Russian Intelligence. With moments of humor among the growing suspense it asks how well you know the people that you work with every day and will appeal to the fans of Le Carre. I would like to thank NetGalley and W.W. Norton and Company for providing this book.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Has a Russian asset infiltrated the CIA?
Sam Joseph, a CIA agent with a black mark on his record already, is tasked with meeting Boris Golikov (a Russian who claims to have valuable information to sell) in a casino in Singapore. By the end of the night Sam is snatched by two Russians who demand he tell them what Golikov told him during their brief “bump” meeting and ultimately incapacitate Sam and bring him to Moscow for further interrogation (ie, torture). Golikov is the second Russian asset to be outed in a short period of time which does not reflect well on the branch of the CIA focused on Russia (known as the Russia House), particularly Artemis Procter (head of the division known as Moscow X) who was responsible for Sam being given the Golikov assignment. A shift is going on at the CIA, with two former agents who had left for the private sector years earlier being brought back in as the new Director and the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO), with offices on the Seventh Floor. Many at the Agency aren’t happy with these appointments, including Procter and her three friends (nicknamed the Russia House Mafia/Bratva). The four became friends back in their training days at the Farm and for a time the now Director and DDO were a part of their group as well, until an op in Afghanistan went south. Procter is made the scapegoat for what happened to Sam and is fired from the job that is her life; her friends are able to enact a swap to bring Sam back home, but he has been damaged by the experience. He also comes back with a secret, the information that Golikov gave him and which he was able to keep from his Russian captors….someone now at a high level at the Agency is feeding high level information to the Russians and is part of a long-game play to so undermine the CIA that it collapses. The list of possible suspects is small, namely the Russia House Mafia, the Director and the DDO, and it is up to Procter and Sam to figure out whether that information is true and, if so, who the traitor is…before they become the next people to disappear, permanently. For fans of spy fiction, The Seventh Floor brings the goods. Author David McCloskey’s résumé makes it clear that he knows the world about which he is writing, and it is not the glamorized world of 007. It is a world full of bureaucracies, rivalries, quests for power and endless abilities to abandon friendships and shatter trust, but within it there exist people who are genuinely passionate about doing what they do and putting duty over self. Artemis Procter is one such person, and her dedication not only to her job but to the people with whom she works has not made her career easy. The same is true of other people in the business like Rem Zhomov of the Russian SVR and Petra Devine, one of the CIA’s mole hunters. Main and supporting characters are fully developed and full of nuance, the culture of working in the world of deception and the toll it takes on those who live it (hint: lots of alcohol) is depicted with brutal honesty, and the search for the possible mole grabs the reader’s attention from the start and holds it till the end. The Seventh Floor is the third in a series which started with Damascus Station (where the dynamic between Procter and Sam begins); it can be read as a standalone but I highly recommend reading the preceding two titles (before or after, your call) as well. Readers of McCloskey’s previous books will certainly want to grab a copy of this latest release, as should readers of John Le Carré, Charles Cumming and Paul Vidich (amongst others). Many, many thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for allowing me early access to this brilliant work of espionage fiction.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com