American
David McCloskey is an American novelist and former Central Intelligence Agency analyst. He worked at the CIA for several years, with a focus on the Middle East, and later left the agency to write fiction. His debut novel, Damascus Station, drew on that experience and was published in 2021. It follows a CIA officer running an operation to recruit a source inside the Syrian regime. He followed it with Moscow X, The Seventh Floor and The Persian, and then London Station, his fifth novel. His books are contemporary spy thrillers built around tradecraft, institutional politics and the choices of intelligence officers. They have drawn attention for their realistic detail about how spy services recruit sources, run operations and deal with allies and rivals. McCloskey also co-hosts a podcast about intelligence and national security, and he has written about the work of spies for general readers.