Is David McCloskey the best spy writer of our generation?
In this episode of No Limits: The Thriller Podcast, we deliver a FULL SPOILER review of The Persian by David McCloskey — breaking down the plot, characters, themes, and real-world intelligence tradecraft behind one of today’s most talked-about espionage novels.
Drawing on McCloskey’s CIA background, The Persian pushes modern spy fiction toward deeper realism and moral complexity. We analyze how it compares to classic and contemporary masters of the genre and debate whether McCloskey belongs at the very top of modern espionage writing.
⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains complete plot spoilers for The Persian.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and Podcast Overview
01:08 Deep Dive into 'The Persian'
05:57 Character Analysis and Themes in Espionage
08:15 Initial Impressions and Character Engagement
11:19 The Puzzle Analogy: Understanding the Story's Structure
14:10 Themes of Expendability and Personal Sacrifice
17:09 Character Arcs: Transformation Through Adversity
20:16 Narrative Style: Flashbacks and Storytelling Techniques
26:15 Final Thoughts and Overall Impressions
38:43 Character Arcs and Buy-In
39:53 Conflict and Individual Stories
42:12 The Complexity of Good and Evil
43:55 Character Development and Relationships
47:26 Motherhood and Personal Growth
49:19 Setting and Immersion
53:54 Cover Art and Themes
01:00:12 Final Thoughts and Ratings
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00:00:17
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike.
00:00:21
And welcome back to this year's No Limits, the other podcast.
00:00:26
How you doing tonight, Mike? I am great and just want to let
00:00:30
you know this episode and every episode coming at you in 2026
00:00:35
will be brought to you by the Thriller Pod Patron Book Club.
00:00:40
For less than the price of a novel a month, you too can
00:00:42
support the podcast and be the reason that we can make more
00:00:45
podcasts. So just head over to
00:00:47
thrillerpod.com, click the Patreon tab to learn more and
00:00:51
become part of this amazing book club where the talk never stops.
00:00:55
And Chris, I cannot wait for some of the patrons to read the
00:00:59
Persian. Oh yes.
00:01:01
A quick caveat though, because we are spoiling David
00:01:04
Mccloskey's most recent book, The Persian.
00:01:08
I really do think this one has to be read twice.
00:01:13
It's a very intricate, very complex web of spy verse, spy
00:01:18
double agents, Tehran and Israel ripped from the headline stuff,
00:01:22
as we've come to expect with so many of these authors that we
00:01:25
read. But it is dense and it is thick
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and it is heavy. And I wasn't quite sure the
00:01:31
first read how much I was into it.
00:01:34
But thank goodness I stuck through to the end because the
00:01:37
ending is just explosive and gripping.
00:01:41
And then you telling me you absolutely love this book.
00:01:43
I was like, what did I miss? I got to go back to it and I'm
00:01:45
enjoying it so much more on the second reread and all of that
00:01:48
dense stuff pays off so well. And I'm having such a better
00:01:52
time understanding who's who and which plot lines fit where.
00:01:57
Because man, this thing was messy for a little bit with with
00:01:59
the timing and the narrative. But once I read it again, a
00:02:02
little slower and savored it, it's absolute genius.
00:02:05
I think it's a master class. This book on espionage writing.
00:02:10
Yeah, I know I I definitely agree.
00:02:12
And you know, I want to say happy New Year, Merry Christmas,
00:02:15
happy holidays everyone. This is going to this is our
00:02:17
first pod we're recording in the year of our Lord 2026.
00:02:21
So I hope you had a nice time off.
00:02:24
And I think related to why that is related to why I liked it so
00:02:28
much because, you know, we had kind of taken a pause in the
00:02:32
month of December. We did a couple of recordings.
00:02:35
We were, we were going to try to hustle to like get this one
00:02:38
along with dead ringer, which I'm also really excited about
00:02:42
too. Sure.
00:02:43
I'm, I'm about like 15 chapters into that.
00:02:46
And then, you know, Chris Howdy has me hooked again.
00:02:49
But there's something saying about, you know, and we kind of
00:02:53
said this week, or we might not have said it on the pod, but we
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said it on our, our after after hours pod that we posted for the
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patrons only. Like Mike said, if you want that
00:03:01
extra content, go and support us.
00:03:03
But you know, there is something to be said about not like
00:03:07
trudging through a book. It it's kind of like a project
00:03:10
Hail Mary, you know, like we we weren't planning to do that.
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I had just finished a book. I think it was on your, you
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know, little peek behind the curtain here.
00:03:19
We share all of our accounts like our audibles, our Libby's,
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you know, ever. And also, so I think we we
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happen to finish one book on on Libby and we hadn't quite
00:03:30
decided what we're going to do next.
00:03:32
And I'd kept on seeing every time I went to the Libby app
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that you had checked out, either checked out or bought on one of
00:03:39
them Project Hail Mary. And I just started listening to
00:03:43
it in my free time. And I like, I slowly chewed it
00:03:46
until it like caught me that I like was literally like hiding
00:03:49
in the bathroom like, or like was saying to Caroline, I'll
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walk the dog like, so I could listen, you know, you know,
00:03:55
doing the dishes. And the same thing happened at
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the Persian with me. Like, you know, we, I, it was
00:04:01
slow going. First couple chapters you were
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texting me because you were a little bit ahead of me.
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I was like, yeah, I agree with you.
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It's it's a little rough. But then I just kept on.
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You know, I had, I was wrapping presents.
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I was, you know, cleaning the dishes after parties and and
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putting in the pot and, and it had me wrapped that I couldn't
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wait to get back to it. Like, yeah, I haven't had that
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experience with a book since Project Hail Mary, really, that
00:04:27
I can't wait to get back to these characters and these
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storylines. Like, and because of their, you
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know, this is a book that has all new characters, a lot of
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characters. Obviously we're in like a
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different regime, different like areas.
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So a lot of different, you know, new character names.
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So I actually slowed down the pot.
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I, I, I changed it from 1.7 speed to 11.5, even 1.2 at
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times, just like I wanted to absorb this.
00:04:54
And it was funny tonight we were talking about books and puzzles
00:04:58
and about how when you're reading a book or you're doing a
00:05:02
puzzle, you get to that point where you just want to you want
00:05:06
to keep keep either finishing that puzzle or keep finishing
00:05:09
that book. But at the same time, you don't
00:05:11
want it to end. Like you don't want to finish
00:05:12
the puzzle, don't want to finish the book.
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I got to that, but my mother-in-law like doesn't she
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reads books? But we were talking about the
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puzzle and I was like, that's so funny because I was thinking
00:05:20
about this pod tonight. I'm like, that's exactly how I
00:05:23
felt with the Persian, how I didn't want the book to end.
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Like, because you know, I'm just going to say the, the thing I
00:05:29
think that makes this book brilliant is the fact that, you
00:05:33
know, the end. Like you don't know the actual
00:05:36
end, but you know that he's in captivity.
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You you know that he doesn't like he, he gets caught.
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So you know that like, right off the bat.
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And like, once you understand that and it's just like peeling
00:05:48
back of the onion and spy versus spy.
00:05:52
Like McCluskey for me just did it again.
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Yeah, I I this is up there with Damascus Station dude, for me.
00:05:59
I think this is, dare I say it, better than the 7th floor.
00:06:05
I haven't finished Moscow XII really want to go back and
00:06:08
actually do that. I feel like we should cover that
00:06:10
in the pod because we we never it was during either one of my
00:06:13
paternity leaves one of my sick leave.
00:06:15
Whatever. We you just talked to David
00:06:18
alone for that one. But to me he he's just I don't
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know. I I really connected with this
00:06:27
book and I I guess the other thing I really liked about it.
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I'm sorry, I'm rambling. I'll let you speak.
00:06:33
Was I liked how it was just a different story plot.
00:06:37
We we had the Mossad and we had the Iranians.
00:06:40
Like we didn't have to bring in the CIA at all.
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Yeah, I just I it was a nice fresher like to just get get
00:06:46
away from that, you know. Yeah.
00:06:49
And we we didn't have to have and our character wasn't this
00:06:52
big bad that he he was a terrible shot.
00:06:54
He could barely even shoot himself in that the very end,
00:06:56
right when he tried to kill himself.
00:06:59
You know, he's just an ordinary guy who obviously had, you know,
00:07:01
was able to coerce people, obviously very good at, you
00:07:04
know, certain areas of espionage.
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You have the Glitzman character who reminds me of all, like the
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best of the best of, you know, the spy characters that we we've
00:07:15
read in all these novels we've covered.
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Something out of Gabriel Alan like, yeah, like his his mentor
00:07:21
for sure. But even I, you know, Irene
00:07:23
Kennedy, absolutely, you have, you know, George Smiley in in
00:07:28
him like all these, you know, characters that run assets.
00:07:33
I've even like this book draws heavily on like homeland and you
00:07:37
know, just I don't know, I love this book and I I don't know
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what we should say since we're covering this in I read it in
00:07:43
2025, but we're covering it in 2026 now.
00:07:47
For me, this would would have been in my top five of 2025 for
00:07:50
sure. Dude you just absolutely crushed
00:07:54
it. I don't even know where to pick
00:07:55
up there. You made like 5 or 6 insanely
00:07:58
good points and I gotta say I'm just so glad you're my wing man
00:08:01
because almost everything you just said that I entirely agree
00:08:05
with was nowhere near my first experience with this book.
00:08:10
I was the complete flip side opposite side where I was going
00:08:13
to recommend. Maybe we don't cover it.
00:08:15
I went so far as I mouthed off in the Patreon group chat.
00:08:17
I don't know if you you've been scrolling up in the in the chat,
00:08:20
but. Sometimes it gets too much and I
00:08:21
miss some but. At some point I was like, I
00:08:25
don't know, guys, we might have to drop this one and strike it
00:08:28
off the reading list. I'm like 30% in and I'm lost.
00:08:32
I got to be honest, the first third, I got all these little
00:08:35
snippets of people's lives. I knew Cam was in detention.
00:08:39
I knew there was an assassination of a scientist and
00:08:41
his family in the car. I knew I, I think maybe Mirror
00:08:45
or, or maybe it was Mirror and Yael, Yael, I think we're one of
00:08:49
the Israeli couples that were attacked first.
00:08:51
And there was the Jerusalem attack as well, you know, with
00:08:53
the drone. So I'm like, OK, there's these
00:08:55
snippets of really cool scenes. I had to be honest, though, I
00:08:59
was not bought into any of the characters, either them
00:09:03
personally or their arc. So I'm, I'm hitting that halfway
00:09:07
point. I'm like, I don't know if I'm
00:09:08
going to keep going. And thank goodness I did,
00:09:11
because everything you said comes true once this book falls
00:09:14
into place. And that's why the puzzle
00:09:17
analogy you made is spectacular. When you were at that stage of a
00:09:21
puzzle where you just don't see it.
00:09:23
You, you, you like can't envision yourself getting to the
00:09:26
end. It's.
00:09:27
Frustrating all these. Pieces and I can't.
00:09:29
I don't know where to put them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:31
Dude it's so frustrating Finish the.
00:09:32
The border and now you have to start for real, right?
00:09:35
Maybe you have the border or maybe you have like clumps of
00:09:38
five or six and they're like, you're so excited when those few
00:09:40
snap together like shit, I don't know how to place this like
00:09:43
where does it go within the border?
00:09:45
And and or you run out of those border pieces and then you got
00:09:49
to make that next hump of filling in the middle.
00:09:51
Well, fortunately, everything I would say halfway through this
00:09:55
book, maybe a little later, starts falling into place,
00:09:58
particularly around a lot of the Tehran stuff, Excuse me,
00:10:02
Istanbul, when they go to Istanbul.
00:10:04
And that is the primary, I would say maybe even kind of like the
00:10:08
culminating action that brings Roya into the story.
00:10:12
And once we see Glitzman having to at first basically capture
00:10:18
Roya, but then Glitzman has this grand plan to turn it over to
00:10:22
Cam the dentist to kind of woo her and.
00:10:25
Recruit her. Run her as an asset, basically
00:10:28
this double agent and once all that falls into place, I'm like,
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Oh my God, I now I understand the assassination of the
00:10:35
scientist in the car with the family.
00:10:37
She's the widow and what she's looking for, right?
00:10:40
She's looking for revenge. So when Cam sells her the story
00:10:44
that, you know, they're basically like internal
00:10:47
investigations and they're trying to get, you know,
00:10:50
Zionists and spies and the Mossad out of the government and
00:10:53
and her boss is compromised and she was falling for the boss.
00:10:58
I just think all those complexities fell into place and
00:11:01
I when I hit that stage of that puzzle clicking together and I
00:11:04
had like A5 six piece chunk and it was able to place that chunk
00:11:09
in the corner and snap it in. It felt so good.
00:11:12
And then like a puzzle, the last third of this book, when you see
00:11:16
the final picture, you, you think you know what it's going
00:11:19
to look like in the end, but the things start falling into place.
00:11:22
And you actually, I don't know about you, but every time we're
00:11:26
getting Cam in his detention cell and he's talking about
00:11:30
putting back in his mind. And I got to say, I mean, David
00:11:34
McCloskey being an insider in the industry and being ACIA
00:11:37
analyst and knowing not only the real politic of how some of
00:11:41
these geopolitical things go down and who the major players
00:11:44
are, but also just knowing the internal psychology of someone
00:11:48
in captivity or someone being run as an agent, as an asset.
00:11:53
He knows the human mind under those stressful circumstances so
00:11:57
well. I don't know if it's a personal
00:11:59
experience or so many cases he studied, he's kind of able to
00:12:03
put himself into the job so well that these characters, they sing
00:12:10
every single one of them. And what they're going through
00:12:12
is almost like musical notes on a, on a, like on a beautiful
00:12:16
composition. Just who they are, what their
00:12:19
motivations are, their complexities, their little quips
00:12:22
in their dialogue all just hummed together so nicely.
00:12:27
And I got to say, I didn't see that.
00:12:28
I I missed the forest for the trees in the very first half of
00:12:31
the book. So once you stick through it, I
00:12:33
think once Roya gets recruited, once you see Cam running her,
00:12:37
once everything. Glitzman set up the training in
00:12:41
Albania, recruiting Cam in his dentist chair.
00:12:45
That makes its way into my Limerick later.
00:12:47
But the dentist chair scene where Glitzman recruits him, all
00:12:50
of that has this massive payoff. Even making sure he gets an
00:12:53
office in Tehran to run his dentist.
00:12:56
His dentist office has a storage room or, or was a separate room.
00:13:00
Storage room would have been too small.
00:13:01
They had to lock it and use it for their supplies.
00:13:03
They've been gathering all these supplies.
00:13:06
Even the information they're having Roya move like she's
00:13:09
doing all these small little odd jobs for her boss and she
00:13:12
doesn't really know what unit was it called Unit 840 or 870,
00:13:16
You know, inside the Iranian intelligence, she doesn't even
00:13:20
know how these things all add up.
00:13:21
But ultimately she starts giving Cam little bits of information
00:13:25
that Klitzman's able to use. It all fell into place.
00:13:29
I think the puzzle analogy is perfect and not to not to
00:13:32
mention your other point. Like I said, you made a million
00:13:34
really good points having none of the Americans involved.
00:13:38
You're right, it was refreshing. It, it didn't need to become
00:13:42
jingoistic, patriotic American government CIA story.
00:13:46
It, it was a spy story without needing and necessitating the CI
00:13:49
as involvement. And that was really pleasant.
00:13:52
I mean that that was refreshing to see in one of these books.
00:13:54
So hats off to McCluskey. I think not only because of this
00:13:58
book, but the whole slate of his works, he will go down as one of
00:14:02
the best American espionage writers and spy novelists, dare
00:14:08
I say of all time, but definitely of this generation.
00:14:11
Oh yeah, I'm convinced. I'm convinced.
00:14:13
Absolutely. And while you were saying that,
00:14:16
I think another point of, you know, maybe this is naive of me
00:14:21
to to think like this, but not having any sort of patriotic,
00:14:27
you know, root brouhaha, like I'm I'm rooting for the American
00:14:30
in the story. When you boil it down, it really
00:14:34
does like put into perspective for at least for myself, this
00:14:38
idea of war, right, where, you know, you have these both sides
00:14:43
and they're and you even have that confrontation right between
00:14:46
arc and between the general where, you know, they're talking
00:14:50
about the what? Once he gets you know, he he
00:14:53
actually captures him. He says like, you know, they're
00:14:55
essentially, you know, arguing the same side of the same coin,
00:14:58
you know, with caveats. You know, we don't, you know,
00:15:00
the Jews don't taking collateral, the other ones do.
00:15:03
Like, you know, whatever you want to essentially justify, you
00:15:07
know, make yourself feel good at night.
00:15:09
When you think about that, it really, like boils it down.
00:15:12
Like, wow, is this, yeah, it is a battle.
00:15:14
And like, you do have to pick a side.
00:15:15
But like, in the end, it's both sides are fighting for a reason,
00:15:20
a 'cause, you know, like, yeah. And in, in this one, the.
00:15:24
And the other thing that really sung to me was pinpointing the
00:15:29
idea of hierarchy. Sure.
00:15:31
And this idea of like whose lives are are worth more than
00:15:35
others. And I think that's at the end
00:15:39
when when you find out that Glitzmann got Cam out, right?
00:15:45
That to me was like, because in the beginning Glitzmann puts it
00:15:49
plainly, like, yeah, he's running.
00:15:51
He's running Cam. Cam is a quote UN quote Jew, but
00:15:55
he's not like he's expendable and he says.
00:15:58
He's doing it for the money, He's not really doing it for the
00:16:01
homeland or the Zionist 'cause he needed to find a guy who
00:16:04
didn't, you know, get fall into that whole trap.
00:16:06
And even that Purim scene where they're at synagogue and
00:16:09
Glitzman, in his mind, is just kind of like goofing off about
00:16:12
and he's like, I don't even take care of these stories seriously.
00:16:15
The cause is different for Glitzman, I think.
00:16:21
Well, especially after what happens to his family.
00:16:23
Oh my goodness. No, and I think that's when it
00:16:24
clicks in it's like changes him. Yeah when when his when his
00:16:28
daughter dies it it's a different ball game.
00:16:32
It's a different ball game and the fact that you know when you
00:16:35
feel so I feel so bad for Cam, like I.
00:16:37
I think that's also when he realizes he'll do anything to
00:16:40
save Cam, though I think prior to that point, Cam was a
00:16:42
business proposition. You know, he was, he was just in
00:16:46
it for the money and he knew he was in it for the money and
00:16:48
therefore it made a little easier.
00:16:49
You don't have some crazy compatriot that you have to
00:16:52
stand by your brother in arms kind of you no deal.
00:16:55
He was just money. But after I think he loses his
00:16:57
family, I think he realizes this is more personal than that.
00:17:02
And we, we can't become them, you know?
00:17:05
And I think he also sees the good in Cam.
00:17:07
Yeah, you know, Cam is surely purely in it for the money.
00:17:10
But, you know, he did not need to stay.
00:17:12
He could have got out. He he it's his own fault that he
00:17:15
got captured. He goes on his own stupidity.
00:17:18
Oh, he his arc is great. And this idea of like it's, it's
00:17:22
very subtly done. I think he mentions it like two
00:17:25
or three times. The secret, right, Absolutely.
00:17:29
We don't know what the secret is until the very last chapter.
00:17:33
And the fact that he lied and he, he kept that through his
00:17:38
whole three years of captivity, you know, amazing.
00:17:43
That to me was like, wow, I wasn't expecting that.
00:17:45
I, I wasn't, I, I knew that there was going to be something.
00:17:50
I kind of had a feeling that, you know, Cam was going to like
00:17:52
be saved or like somehow he was going to get out or I, I, I
00:17:55
don't know, I didn't know how, but I was not expecting him to
00:17:58
show up and to have Roya and Arya like they be there at, at
00:18:03
the, you know, at home. He, he says because like, you
00:18:06
know, he titles it, you know, present day home, home and, and
00:18:11
they're living in that house. The California house?
00:18:13
Yeah, the one that Glitzman, that was creepy when Glitzman
00:18:16
recruited him and camps like, I never spoke to anybody about
00:18:21
this California house. I never even said.
00:18:23
But he the dentist. Chair scene.
00:18:24
The dentist chair scene is amazing.
00:18:27
It shows you like everything that people are are watching or
00:18:29
you know they can find out anything from our Google
00:18:32
searches. He just searched it a few times
00:18:34
and they knew he was looking at the real estate and all of a
00:18:36
sudden they found what he wanted and they gave him a path to
00:18:39
achieve it. And so Glitzman was using him
00:18:43
due to all this, you know, surveillance, probably using
00:18:46
Pegasus or whatever, you know, they were trying.
00:18:48
To say Medusa, right? Yeah.
00:18:50
Oh, that's what they say, Yeah. Think about it though, from the
00:18:54
dentist chair to these guys doing whatever it takes to save
00:18:59
one another. In the end, Glitzman sacrificing
00:19:02
whatever he has to sacrifice of his 'cause his belief and maybe
00:19:05
even his country's security to get Cam out, what Cam did to
00:19:11
sacrifice for Roya. How far we've come from the
00:19:15
dentist chair scene. Like if you really step back and
00:19:18
look at these characters long term in terms of the the whole
00:19:21
book length, you each one really goes on an amazing journey and
00:19:26
and very different journeys, but they're so intertwined.
00:19:29
There's no way everybody comes out on top as they did if they,
00:19:34
if they didn't go through that together, if they kind of didn't
00:19:37
have trial by. File even Roya, right, even Roya
00:19:39
with like losing her husband to then having like a pretty nice
00:19:43
job with the goods force, you know, knowing what she's doing
00:19:48
to like falling in love with, you know, such a her boss, the
00:19:51
boss to then being run as a double agent, finding out that
00:19:54
she's a double agent, hating the man who's like put her in this
00:19:57
impossible situation, you know, because she's, she's literally
00:19:59
screwed, right. She can't go back and say that,
00:20:02
Oh, I, I didn't know he was, you know, running me as a double
00:20:06
agent. She would be killed.
00:20:07
She's done. So like he literally puts her in
00:20:09
the most impossible situation to then ultimately forgiving.
00:20:13
You know, I, I, I'm taking her opening the door at the very end
00:20:16
as forgiveness. Absolutely.
00:20:19
Getting her out, you know, like for her to go on that arc, I
00:20:23
don't know those she. Saw what Cam did and I think she
00:20:26
saw it as genuine. I think there were little moves
00:20:29
along the way where Cam realized.
00:20:31
There was that there was an interesting line where she says
00:20:34
you are. What did she say?
00:20:38
You're not a an honest man or you're not a she said.
00:20:44
She calls him like you know, you're, you're a player, like
00:20:47
you've wanted to bed me. You, you've wanted to be, you
00:20:50
know, but you at least you've been, you haven't done it yet.
00:20:54
And you know, it's like, I don't know, she gave him, she gave
00:20:57
him. I wish that I wish I had the,
00:20:59
the quote, you know, you're the quote guy.
00:21:00
I'm not the quote guy, but. Yeah, no, I didn't pull any out
00:21:03
here, but there are a few gems. For her to like turn and and to
00:21:08
realize that, yeah, he found a purpose in life.
00:21:13
You know, like to his one purpose in life was once he got
00:21:17
caught, got her safely and was not going to give her up, he was
00:21:22
willing to stab himself with a a sharpened blue crayon to save
00:21:27
that secret. It's just powerful.
00:21:30
That crayon is such a such a motif.
00:21:33
It's like a totem. I wanted to ask you about what
00:21:37
maybe this is a point of contention because you know, it
00:21:40
in the beginning, it's a little bit, you know, discombobulated.
00:21:43
But what did you think of this idea of parsing it between?
00:21:48
All right, we're doing flashbacks.
00:21:49
The flashbacks are actually like him writing down this
00:21:52
confession, you know, that he's had to write down like,
00:21:55
thousands of times. Like, how did you like that
00:21:58
writing style that McCluskey introduced here?
00:22:00
It falls into the exact same pattern that I described before.
00:22:06
I didn't like it at first. I thought the flashback was was
00:22:10
just going to be some cheap way of telling us a story, but you
00:22:14
have to kind of give it an edge. And so I thought it was maybe
00:22:16
this cheap maneuver to kind of take a story and just be like,
00:22:19
if I just told the story, it wouldn't be as compelling.
00:22:22
So I'm going to tell it in captivity and I'm going to have
00:22:25
the stress of the interrogations and the beatings and all of this
00:22:29
woven in just to kind of add that little bit of jazz.
00:22:31
Music. Yeah, and playing that song over
00:22:35
and over. And the thing about the crayon
00:22:37
and McGraw? Yeah.
00:22:38
Yeah. And I was like, OK, I think this
00:22:40
is just going to serve up serve a limited purpose and just to
00:22:44
make it a little, raise the stakes a little bit, if you
00:22:46
will. Sure.
00:22:47
In the end though, and probably at that point where I finally
00:22:53
needed to know what the secret was like, you said you had a
00:22:56
point in this book where I wanted to go to work just to
00:22:59
have a commute. I just wanted to have a 40
00:23:01
minute commute where I could listen to this and and I didn't
00:23:04
want to get to school or on the drive home, I didn't want to
00:23:06
pull into the driveway. But I did not hit that point
00:23:09
until everything came together. So the flashbacks at first
00:23:12
confused me, particularly the sexual escapades and this tryst
00:23:17
with. Oh yeah, his.
00:23:19
Friend Mira Lee, I think, but but it turns out that was a
00:23:23
drill that was like part of their practice and training, and
00:23:26
then they're joking. That was just, it was his
00:23:28
birthday present that he like concocted this story that they
00:23:32
were gonna get. You know, essentially he hired 2
00:23:35
gay guys to represent police. It was a gag.
00:23:39
It was a gag, yeah. And then at the very end, it's
00:23:41
just, oh, she's a stripper where that has a, you know.
00:23:45
Anyway, it was a turn off for me in the beginning because I was
00:23:48
like what the hell are we doing here?
00:23:49
It adds to the confusion for sure.
00:23:50
It added to the confusion at a time where I really didn't
00:23:53
already need more confusion. But it that was slightly saved
00:23:57
when I get to see the flashback of when they take who did they?
00:24:01
Who did they capture at first? Did they get gore money?
00:24:04
And that take down where the vendors are there and they
00:24:09
almost have to call it off at the last minute when Amira Lee
00:24:12
dies and oh. Yes.
00:24:14
That's when shit got real. And so bouncing, because that's
00:24:18
a big. Turning point for Cam 2 is when
00:24:20
he see when he his the death of his friend.
00:24:22
Agreed. And it was his friend who he
00:24:25
talked about who won. He recruited, he got in into
00:24:28
Glitzman's game and he talked so much about the getting out and
00:24:31
what their life was going to be like on the other side.
00:24:34
And so Amira Lee was almost a symbol, I think of what what it
00:24:38
would be like to get out be on the other side.
00:24:40
And this is like your your your sidekick who's going to get
00:24:43
there with you. And when he loses him in that
00:24:46
op, that failed OP and then Glitzman abandons him and
00:24:48
Glitzman says, you got to stay. I got to get out.
00:24:51
I just feel like that raised the stakes a little more.
00:24:53
And that's when it started clicking for me with the
00:24:56
flashbacks. And then like I said before, all
00:24:59
of that really, really came together with Roya.
00:25:02
And when Glitzman and Roya are confronted at when her boss
00:25:07
dies, which did, did they drug him or was it a natural thing?
00:25:12
And Glitzman just responded to it and had, what's the woman's
00:25:16
name, the other woman on the team, Rifka.
00:25:18
Rifka Yeah, I I. Rifka and Glitzman come in and
00:25:21
save the day. I take that to be that like he
00:25:24
just naturally was, you know, he he partied a little bit and then
00:25:28
he just had a heart attack and they.
00:25:29
I think so. They took advantage of it by
00:25:31
exactly it, you know, seem that, you know, he had this, you know,
00:25:36
crazy, you know, addiction and or what not.
00:25:39
That's how I read it, not as anything else nefarious.
00:25:42
But yeah, I I, I agree that like in the beginning, the writing
00:25:46
style as the confusion, right. And, and you know, like, you
00:25:50
know, makes a little bit of a slog to get through.
00:25:52
But then towards the end, I like that we had that writing style
00:25:57
because I feel like it helps pay off the, the final sequences
00:26:02
even more because we completely, we went through his journey in
00:26:05
captivity and like seeing these flashbacks written in his word,
00:26:09
you know, and, and not just being told this, you know it, it
00:26:12
gives it a little bit more credence for me.
00:26:14
I completely, yeah, yeah, I, I took back everything I said
00:26:18
about it being kind of a cheap storytelling device just to add
00:26:20
some flair. You know, I think it became
00:26:22
integral to the story that he wanted to tell of how Cam about
00:26:27
how everybody went on an arc. And if any one of them didn't go
00:26:31
on that arc, they would not have gotten out on the other side.
00:26:34
You know, they, they wouldn't have saved Roya Glitzman
00:26:37
wouldn't have traded for Cam. I think everyone had to go
00:26:41
through that and seeing the pieces again.
00:26:43
It's a puzzle. The the storytelling is like you
00:26:46
get to see the puzzle being taken apart and put together.
00:26:49
Like they show us the puzzle completed very early on.
00:26:53
He's in prison, but that was only like stage one of the
00:26:55
puzzle, and then there's an even bigger piece of the puzzle that
00:26:58
we didn't know was there that you tack on and kind of unlocks
00:27:01
the whole thing. And so I think that can only
00:27:04
work with a very creative storytelling device, such as the
00:27:09
captivity and then the crayon stuff.
00:27:11
In the beginning, I was like, I get the emphasis on the crayon.
00:27:13
It's like just something to bring us back to these scenes
00:27:17
and buy into these scenes and see what this guy is going
00:27:20
through. But when I thought about a
00:27:22
little bit deeper, it's kind of like in what was the most
00:27:26
recent, The 7th Floor, where our main character, come on, tell me
00:27:31
his name, Sam Joseph, when Sam Joseph is in captivity counting
00:27:35
the stars on the wall. You need to have something.
00:27:38
Yeah, and Cam even reports at one point how many stars are on
00:27:41
the wall. That crayon kind of took me back
00:27:43
to what Sam Joseph was going through, sitting in that cell,
00:27:47
trying to hold on to some semblance of hope and also
00:27:51
trying to keep a secret locked away.
00:27:53
And once I saw that, I was like, the crayon is a really cool way
00:27:56
of doing that and. At the end when they only give
00:28:00
him red crayons and he like he almost, he almost loses it.
00:28:03
He almost loses it, right? Oh yeah, 'cause he needed that
00:28:06
blue one. Yeah, I thought that was really
00:28:08
cool in the end, but again, I didn't buy into it at first.
00:28:10
By the end I was all about it. When he gets the wrong colour
00:28:13
crayon and it just shocks his world, turns everything upside
00:28:16
down. I was like, wow, to be in a
00:28:19
space where that's what basically breaks you as a man,
00:28:23
Wow, that's a dark place to be. Ah, dude, I this, yeah, I, I
00:28:31
think like the the culmination of the writing style of the
00:28:35
story arcs, the character arcs just really cement this book to
00:28:41
me as like one of the best books of 2025 that I've read.
00:28:46
Yeah, I'm not going to disagree. I I want to finish my second
00:28:49
read through. I didn't completely finish my
00:28:51
second reread, but as we do the scorecard here in a minute, I'm
00:28:55
going to tell you what my my score would have been like at
00:28:58
the 75% mark of this book. And then what it is now, having
00:29:02
almost completed a second reread and had you explain a lot to me
00:29:06
and break it down for me and, and see your enthusiasm for it.
00:29:09
This might be the top book that my score just jumped,
00:29:13
skyrocketed up from first read to 2nd read or from first read
00:29:16
to discussion with you to 2nd read.
00:29:18
So appreciate that. I I really need my wingman for
00:29:21
this one or else would have been I would have been singing a
00:29:23
different tune tonight. That's the, you know, part of
00:29:26
the point of the spot is just to like hash out.
00:29:29
A lot of times we're, a lot of times we're on the same page,
00:29:31
you know, we, we click. But there are other times where,
00:29:35
you know, we, we read something, whether it's me, you, you're
00:29:38
like, no, I saw this. And then like, oh, it, it opens
00:29:41
up things, you know, because we get into our, you know, our
00:29:46
comfort zones or our, you know, our arcs that we, we, we
00:29:50
typically go down and then, you know, off at times we, we shut
00:29:54
ourself off from truly experiencing a book.
00:29:56
That's why I think like. Completely.
00:29:58
This is one of those books that if I had just if we had set a
00:30:02
date that we had to read it and I just, you know, powered
00:30:06
through it 2 times speed. I'm listening to it while I'm at
00:30:09
work, while I'm doing something else, you know, like again, I
00:30:13
don't think I would have been as passionate about it, but I
00:30:15
agree. The fact that I had some time,
00:30:18
like I was dig, I was, you know, I went through it.
00:30:22
I began to, you know, really get into it and then really want,
00:30:27
like you said, like, you know, you're driving home.
00:30:29
I do an extra lap around around the block just so I can finish a
00:30:32
chapter, you know? Dude, completely.
00:30:37
What did you think of the of the narrator?
00:30:41
There's a new, different guy than we've gotten from the other
00:30:44
McCluskey books. Right.
00:30:45
And I, I think, and I looked up his name, but I didn't look up
00:30:49
his background. I think he must be either a
00:30:55
native speaker. He had an accent that I think
00:30:57
really worked for just this, for the genre, for this location
00:31:02
being a, you know, a Middle Eastern book.
00:31:05
Yeah. What was his name?
00:31:14
Fire Al Qaisi. Probably butchering that one.
00:31:18
But yeah, I don't know what else he might have done, but it was
00:31:22
absolutely the perfect book to being bring in someone of that
00:31:24
background and that skill set. Oh, another thing.
00:31:28
This alone might bring me up a couple points on the scorecard.
00:31:30
The kids, whether it's Alia staying with Rya's sister or I
00:31:37
think it's Oriana and. Glitzman.
00:31:41
'S Glitzman's wife, who she was a little funny character at
00:31:44
times, almost a little bit, reminded me of one of the women
00:31:49
in Iceberries, The Peacock and the Sparrow.
00:31:53
I think she represent a little bit of that domestic life that's
00:31:57
a little too comfortable, like has the comforts of home and
00:32:00
doesn't really maybe or is insulated.
00:32:03
Her husband is trying to insulate her and her family from
00:32:06
the realities of war. And she kind of had a few little
00:32:12
ditzy kind of moments that made me think like, who is she and
00:32:18
what's her role in all this? And then ultimately, you know,
00:32:21
they couldn't protect Oriana and her.
00:32:23
And yeah, I think that was that was tough.
00:32:26
But I think the kids were read great.
00:32:28
The kids were really well done. And every time they were brought
00:32:30
in, the the voice inflection change by the narrator just
00:32:35
really gave you they kind of tug did your heartstrings knowing
00:32:38
that they're they're growing up, they're living in this world.
00:32:41
And as much as these men are attempting to insulate them and
00:32:46
protect them, ultimately they're vulnerable.
00:32:50
And unfortunately saw that with the book.
00:32:54
Should we institute a new section of our pod where we read
00:32:58
some comments that people read on on Audible or so because it's
00:33:03
interesting, because I feel like these, I didn't look at these
00:33:06
comments before we started talking and I don't think you
00:33:08
did either. But all right, this one, worst
00:33:11
of his books gave him four stars, but worst of his books
00:33:14
last five minutes saved it. Absolute terrible storyline.
00:33:18
We have authors ambitious with the timeline are really greats
00:33:22
at the start. I both both story and narrative
00:33:26
improve markedly over time. Engrossing story.
00:33:33
I really wanted the Persian. What was the hell I read after
00:33:35
an exhausting effort to develop the characters.
00:33:38
It then gets better like I've read a few remarkable,
00:33:43
remarkable journey, like, you know, mixed, mixed, integrated,
00:33:47
like you know, it's it we're we're not off, you know, off
00:33:50
base with our our comments here. It seems like a lot of people
00:33:55
are have similar comments but. I think that's what I saw as
00:33:59
well on a few Goodreads comments as a you could tell the people
00:34:02
who almost gave up on the book or were so tired of from having
00:34:06
to track the timeline and the who's who that they almost
00:34:09
didn't get the pleasure of that riveting ending.
00:34:13
So and you can tell the ones who maybe savored it, took their
00:34:17
time, slowed down. This is definitely a book to
00:34:19
slow down and savor a little bit more because when it comes at
00:34:22
the end, it comes heavy and if you if you kind of missed it
00:34:25
along the way or kind of checked out along the way, might not hit
00:34:28
as hard as the end if you're not as bought in.
00:34:30
So curious though the people agree with us.
00:34:33
We kind of each are starting to see eye to eye on this.
00:34:36
What does that mean on the scorecard, though, because this
00:34:39
is not a traditional thriller Pod shoot em up summer read, you
00:34:44
know, Italian style, Italian Job style, you know, or Ocean's 11
00:34:50
heister, You know, one of these thrilling stories we tend to
00:34:53
read. It's a it's a bit more of that
00:34:54
slow burn almost that British influence as we I feel like
00:34:57
we've seen David McCloskey do. He's giving credit to lake her a
00:35:00
lot. You mentioned him before and the
00:35:02
little drummer girl. I never read, but I know it's
00:35:04
one of his favorites and a few comments that I saw said there's
00:35:08
a lot of influence from that book.
00:35:11
So I wonder what that's all going to mean for a scorecard
00:35:14
not being one of our typical shoot em up style kind of
00:35:18
thrillers. So for me, action and suspense,
00:35:22
right when we do get the action, particularly around any of the
00:35:27
drone scenes, you know, the killings, whether it be the
00:35:31
killing of the of Roya's husband, you know, we get the
00:35:37
death the the death of the two Mossad agents in in Jerusalem,
00:35:41
the attack on Glitzman's house. And then also any of the like
00:35:45
the OPS that go on, right? The one where his friend dies,
00:35:48
the one that ultimately gets him where they actually capture the
00:35:52
Colonel, But you know what's his name gets taken.
00:35:58
All of those are just written really well, like and super
00:36:02
suspenseful. So for me, like, I don't know if
00:36:06
I just take that like it's probably like an 8.
00:36:10
Yeah. I think, you know, the rest of
00:36:12
the story being suspenseful I think elevates it up enough to
00:36:16
like maintain that 8. So I I think I would give it an
00:36:18
8. Yeah, I think I'm I'm happy with
00:36:21
an 8, especially because I'm trying to isolate this from as I
00:36:26
was reading a few of those, I was confused at the context of
00:36:29
where it fell and who it was. A lot of the names were starting
00:36:32
to overlap for me. So that's going to hit probably
00:36:37
plot or buy in a little later on.
00:36:38
So 8 for action. And then particularly if you
00:36:40
consider the ocean at the end, you know, get getting to the
00:36:45
beach and in the waves, in the surf, getting shot at, you don't
00:36:50
know what happens. I'm going to include that action
00:36:53
scene as well for a bump. So I think an 8 is where I'm
00:36:55
going to land. Yeah.
00:36:58
So for me, I think I think the plot is where it gets like hit
00:37:02
the most. You know, I think because of
00:37:07
that slow plod in the beginning, you know, the, the, you know, we
00:37:12
sung the praises of of the the way the story was told that it
00:37:15
comes together at the end. But in the beginning, like it is
00:37:19
tough. So I don't want to Ding it like
00:37:23
Sue like like 6 1/2 seven. Yeah, I see plot we do call plot
00:37:30
slash pacing. So that that's why I think we we
00:37:32
can go down to seven. Can we go lower to spread out
00:37:37
the Dings across plot and buy. And I don't think I'm going to
00:37:40
go true. I don't think I'm going to go
00:37:42
lower. I'm I'm going to stick it A7.
00:37:44
And if you, if you combine if, if pacing is the miss in the
00:37:48
beginning of the book, the plot is actually the win at the end
00:37:52
of the end because how everything was plotted out makes
00:37:55
the ending and the reveal that much more special or, or makes
00:37:59
the character arcs so much more special to see where they end
00:38:02
up. But man, the start of that arc
00:38:05
is really tough to get going. It's like a bell curve, but
00:38:08
that's shifted entirely, you know, all the way to the right.
00:38:12
And I think that's where you can then dig further in to buy in
00:38:15
because this book takes a long time to get you bought in.
00:38:19
And I wasn't, I got to be honest, I I mouthed off in the
00:38:21
group chat like guys, you might not want to read this one.
00:38:23
Not too sure. Then after speaking to you and
00:38:26
after finishing it, I wrote back, whoa, this, this is an
00:38:29
instant classic. Like this is actually a piece of
00:38:32
literature and and espionage fiction.
00:38:35
I I really like this is the one where like a lot of times you
00:38:38
have to take it as a whole, you know, you finish it, reread it.
00:38:42
And I went back and I reread, you know, certain chapters just,
00:38:46
you know, and you know, even then, like just certain things
00:38:50
stick out because, you know, like little things that are
00:38:54
going to be important later on that you might not have realized
00:38:57
in the moment. So yeah, but I'll, I'll dig by
00:39:01
and I think I'm going to give it a three.
00:39:02
Three, yeah, Yep, Yep. That's what I was thinking too.
00:39:05
In the moment. I would have gone a little
00:39:07
lower, but man, he got me bought in towards the end.
00:39:11
Bad guys. You mentioned something before
00:39:13
which was really interesting in that yes, this is a conflict of
00:39:18
epic proportions. Israel.
00:39:20
Versus ages oldest on the. Exactly right.
00:39:24
The Caesarian our. President says it's been going
00:39:26
on for 3000 years, right? But then also thinking about
00:39:31
quite literally the last 24 hours.
00:39:34
Like sure, Les. I know.
00:39:37
Wild. I mean, you've got the raise up
00:39:40
Halavi, You've got going on social media encouraging the
00:39:43
protest. I'm wondering if he's going to
00:39:46
have this triumphant return. I mean, what reports can you
00:39:49
trust about? Is the regime collapsing?
00:39:53
Are the ayatollahs on the run? Are they in hiding?
00:39:55
Like, you don't even know what to trust in this digital age.
00:39:58
But at the same time, something is brewing.
00:40:00
And this conflict is 1 of centuries in the making,
00:40:04
millennia in the making. But at the same time, this story
00:40:08
is told through the eyes of individual men.
00:40:10
It's a small story. It's big implications.
00:40:15
But it's basically 2 hardliners, Gorbani and Glitzman, 2 true
00:40:20
believers doing whatever it takes, playing the game the way
00:40:24
the game is designed to be played it.
00:40:27
It's a chess match between the two and it's really just them
00:40:30
and all the pawns they have on the board moving them around.
00:40:33
It's not some tale of global implications.
00:40:36
So as much as the context is a real world is geopolitical, it
00:40:41
could affect, you know, the entire globe and what it looks
00:40:44
like. This story doesn't need to use
00:40:48
that to build drama. It needs to use the individual
00:40:52
relationships, the psychology of the people.
00:40:55
And I think that's a stroke of genius to say it's a big story.
00:40:59
I'm going to tell it in a small way.
00:41:01
And that really paid off. So we don't need a big bad.
00:41:03
We don't need nuke on the loose. You don't need villains who are
00:41:06
plotting in a den, you know, you know, sipping on their, you
00:41:09
know, drinks. You don't need any of that.
00:41:11
You need real life people going to work, showing up to do the
00:41:14
job, put their lives on the line, their family on the line,
00:41:17
go into that moral Gray zone, use people, manipulate people.
00:41:23
And you know what? That's how you got to play the
00:41:26
game. And so I think that is more
00:41:28
compelling for both good and bad guys than having this
00:41:31
stereotypical arch villain, you know, pulling strings, being an
00:41:35
evil, evil mastermind. So I love it.
00:41:38
And I think McCloskey does a good job of trying to stay as
00:41:47
apolitical. That's that's a good term to to
00:41:50
say there. Or like he, he, or I guess to me
00:41:54
he paints Glitzman just as much of a bad guy as he does.
00:41:58
You know, the Colonel. Completely great until the end,
00:42:01
when he saves, when he loses his family and saves.
00:42:04
Sure, until the end, but in the beginning they're both just like
00:42:09
you said, they're both hardliners.
00:42:12
And Blitzman's not even like a, like a he believes in the
00:42:16
country, not like, you know, for his.
00:42:19
He's not a religious zealot. Right.
00:42:21
He's, he's this, you know? A nationalist.
00:42:24
And that, yeah, but it's just interesting, like to juxtapose
00:42:28
these two guys together and the the the Colonel doesn't do
00:42:31
anything that's like super egregious other than, you know,
00:42:34
try to kill Blitzman and in, in, in the by mistake or, you know,
00:42:39
by not mistake, but, you know, he happens to kill his daughter.
00:42:42
Like the family? Yeah.
00:42:43
That is like the only thing that really like, you know, shows the
00:42:45
discrepancies between the two sides.
00:42:47
What what Glitzman would argue is like the good versus the bad,
00:42:50
right? Yeah, the.
00:42:51
Collateral damage. The collateral.
00:42:52
Damage aspect of it. So I don't know, I feel like
00:42:56
McCluskey just does a great job of like just painting the story.
00:42:59
Nails it. It's it's, it's, it's not black
00:43:02
and white, it's grey, it's grey all over.
00:43:04
Yeah, completely dude. I I think that could it be a
00:43:09
four, Could it be a 4 1/2 for bad guys?
00:43:11
I I'm I'm going to go 4. I'm.
00:43:13
Going to go four. Yeah, I'm going to go 4I I don't
00:43:15
think I I want to give it a little bump just for this, like,
00:43:17
philosophy of it. But at the same time, we don't
00:43:20
spend time with Gorbani and we don't spend time with a boss.
00:43:24
When he gets shot, he's running his husband, the scientist.
00:43:26
You know, we didn't have the scientist being manipulated.
00:43:29
What is he working on it? Did he build the drones that
00:43:32
they used to kill Mir and ultimately to kill Glitzman's
00:43:35
family? Yeah, I just think a little bit
00:43:38
more time with some of them on on page, and that could have
00:43:42
been a five. Could have good guys again,
00:43:46
Who's good, who's bad, you know? To me, I'm I'm giving good guys
00:43:52
mainly to It's like a. Cam, how do?
00:43:55
You feel about Cam and Roya? Yeah, that's that's that's what
00:43:58
it comes down to. How do you feel about these two
00:44:00
characters that were used in multiple ways by both sides?
00:44:06
You know, the one has her, her husband taken away from her.
00:44:10
And it's like this other line that Glitzman says, you know,
00:44:15
he's he's yeah, just because he's a scientist and he's he's
00:44:18
making a good money. You should have been do
00:44:20
something different, like go to Paris, take, take that
00:44:23
internship instead. Like, it's like, all right,
00:44:25
Like, you know, but things aren't like that black and
00:44:28
white. It's it's very interesting these
00:44:31
these two people who are put in a position, you know, she she's
00:44:35
not a hard liner at all. Like she, you know, her sister
00:44:38
has to tell her don't be a whore.
00:44:39
She she like wants to experience life, you know, and the same
00:44:43
thing with Sam. Like this this guy who yeah,
00:44:46
he's family was Persian. His his dad had this fervor of
00:44:50
like, you know, wanting to live in the homeland died because of
00:44:53
it. You know, he's 1/2 assed
00:44:55
dentist. You know, you can't really make
00:44:58
it. Obviously has this dream of
00:44:59
going to California just wants wants to get away careless like
00:45:03
what religion you are. Yeah he's a Jew hasn't run a
00:45:06
synagogue in years. Like, you know, but then in the
00:45:11
end, you know, like like we said before, both of these characters
00:45:13
have this great story arc of I think they find like a meaning
00:45:19
for themselves. Like he Cam definitely finds a
00:45:21
meaning for himself. And I, I think his true meaning
00:45:23
is, is to save Roya to to get some sort of redemption for
00:45:31
whatever he put her into. And I think feel like he gets
00:45:34
that. And then for Roya to to be put
00:45:37
in that situation both times and then to come out of it and then
00:45:41
actually forgive what I'm taking as her forgiving him.
00:45:45
I agree. I was just just just great so.
00:45:48
Becoming the mom, I think a big part of her is.
00:45:51
She's not. She was, really.
00:45:52
She's a mom, but she doesn't want to be a mom.
00:45:54
She was afraid to be a mom. She, she loved Alia too much.
00:45:56
She was afraid to get close to her.
00:45:58
I think, I think a few times on the phone, you know, she hung up
00:46:00
when the when the daughter realized.
00:46:02
She said she likes her alone time.
00:46:03
Which parent doesn't like their alone time?
00:46:05
No, for sure, for sure. But it it almost, she had to go
00:46:09
through all this to realize one of the all the things she's been
00:46:14
through and one of the biggest like challenges she had to
00:46:16
confront was that she can ultimately be the person to
00:46:20
raise her daughter. Like that is one of the most
00:46:22
important and hardest things for her to have to learn.
00:46:25
And she goes through all of this being recruited, working as a
00:46:28
double agent, being in compromising positions, having
00:46:32
an affair with your boss, losing her husband and all of that.
00:46:36
She needs to go through to realize I can be the woman who
00:46:40
raises Alia. I can get close to her, and I
00:46:42
can be a good influence for her. A man.
00:46:45
Wow. Yeah.
00:46:46
And the ending, just opening the door and like, letting Cam into
00:46:49
that part of her life after he's basically the one who fucked
00:46:53
her, but then also the one who saved her.
00:46:55
And they had this romantic thing from the beginning when when
00:46:58
there's a strand of hair coming out of her hijab and very early
00:47:01
on. So Cam's automatically out of
00:47:03
sexual. Tension.
00:47:04
The sexual tensions off the charts.
00:47:06
So good guys is really, really good.
00:47:08
My one Ding that I can't go above a four is some of the
00:47:12
secondary and tertiary characters.
00:47:15
A few like a merely memorable, but he gets lost in the shuffle.
00:47:20
He played a big role early and gone.
00:47:22
Rifka was awesome the whole way through.
00:47:25
She was used in a few cool ways, gathering Intel, you know,
00:47:28
Johnny on the spot, the one who cleans things up, thinks on her
00:47:31
toes. I would have liked to be more
00:47:33
involved with her. I think a little more time with
00:47:35
her could have been good. And outside of them, I mean the
00:47:38
the sister, Alia's Alia's aunt Roy's sister played a little
00:47:44
comedic relief with the don't be a whore line.
00:47:46
She was she was touch and go on the phone raising the girl, but
00:47:50
it almost just seemed like a vehicle to get rid of the
00:47:52
daughter and have the daughter pre, you know, occupied with
00:47:55
something else going on. So some of those tertiary
00:47:57
characters I didn't think brought brought as much to the
00:48:00
table as I kind of would have wanted them to bring.
00:48:02
They were just kind of sideshows.
00:48:04
And so for that just one point docked, I'll go 4 out of five.
00:48:08
This is a book that definitely relies heavily on, you know, if
00:48:13
you want to call them the two main goods and the two main like
00:48:16
quote UN quote bads of of Blitzman and and the general and
00:48:21
then having Roya and yeah, I don't know, I think I'm going to
00:48:25
go 4 1/2. I'm going to give it a little
00:48:27
little bottom, little bump. I think I think that's fair.
00:48:31
It's crazy. It it ultimately is a pretty
00:48:33
small story, you know? Yeah.
00:48:35
It is small group of people, very simple.
00:48:38
But one of my critiques is there were too many people.
00:48:40
So it's like very like there are too many names.
00:48:42
But at the same time, the main drama is that there are very few
00:48:46
people in this game. It's these four people.
00:48:48
Main 4 exactly exactly. So that's that's my problem of
00:48:52
why I docked. The point is that outside of
00:48:54
those main 4, the other ones weren't that well established or
00:48:58
I don't know. I did like the daughter.
00:49:01
Yeah, I both daughters. Really.
00:49:03
Yeah. Yeah, what about what about the
00:49:06
setting? McCloskey tends to do a pretty
00:49:08
good job of the setting. How did you feel about this one?
00:49:12
Might be unfair, but I I kind of want to compare it to Damascus
00:49:17
Station here of every dead drop, every training, every
00:49:25
demonstration. I remember seeing where they
00:49:27
were demonstrating early on and I think when the girls gets her,
00:49:30
her jaw broken. I didn't feel as immersed in it
00:49:35
as I did that book. And, and maybe it's not that
00:49:38
fair, but I know, I just know what that book did for me and
00:49:40
how that took me to the streets of Damascus.
00:49:43
And here I didn't get that fully for Tehran.
00:49:46
I, I felt it. I, I, I felt the city a little
00:49:49
bit. Istanbul, I felt Istanbul when
00:49:52
they went there. Sweden, we were there very
00:49:54
briefly training in Albania. None of them truly popped, so
00:49:59
they were all really good, but I don't think any of them rose to
00:50:03
the occasion of that perfect 5. So I'm kind of in Midland
00:50:07
between 3 and a four. It's almost the way the 7th
00:50:11
floor was so good at some of the DC stuff but didn't really
00:50:18
perfectly nail it down. Same thing with Moscow.
00:50:21
XI mean being inside the the some of the discussions going
00:50:24
on. I don't I I knew the discussion
00:50:27
was going on. I like the cell the cell Cam was
00:50:29
in. I felt like the the cell that
00:50:31
Sam Joseph was in in the 7th floor was so much more visceral
00:50:35
to me where I can't really picture the cell Cam is in.
00:50:38
I can picture the two men, I can picture the people, I can
00:50:41
picture the crayons, but I don't know if I picture the cell
00:50:43
around them. So there's like some very good
00:50:46
elements of setting, but I'm not getting the complete picture
00:50:49
with the full texture, so I don't want to go down to a
00:50:52
three. Is that, is that too bad?
00:50:54
Is that too harsh? No, I was going to, I was going
00:50:56
to say that too. Like for me it doesn't.
00:51:01
It's not like the book like where Damascus Station took us
00:51:04
to the streets of Damascus and made us feel like I, I did not
00:51:08
feel like I was in Tehran. There's other books that I've
00:51:10
read that have done a better job at that, even Tel Aviv or
00:51:14
Jerusalem when we're there. But at the same time, he does a
00:51:21
decent enough job putting us in different places and describing
00:51:25
the situations, the actions. Correct.
00:51:28
That they're in in a given setting.
00:51:30
Yeah. So like you said, it was kind of
00:51:33
like the cell was hazy on the outside, but I could see the
00:51:38
main confrontation because I could see the two men.
00:51:40
I could see him with the paper and the and the crayons.
00:51:43
The same thing like when they're in a room like somewhere, but
00:51:47
that room could have been anywhere.
00:51:48
It wasn't like necessarily he took us to a given place and was
00:51:52
described. Like the drone house, the the
00:51:54
house operating the drones out of like really cool that it's,
00:51:57
you know, secreted away and she helped set it up and it's in the
00:52:00
middle of, it was kind of, I think like a pretty well off
00:52:03
little suburb area. It's kind of nondescript, but I
00:52:06
couldn't really picture anything outside of like a typical row
00:52:09
house here in DC or something. Like, I don't know that that
00:52:12
location didn't feel Tehran to me.
00:52:14
And it was probably described very well, but I just didn't
00:52:18
feel like I was there. Yeah.
00:52:19
No, I, I 100% agree. The best time that I felt that
00:52:22
he described what I'm envisioning and what I'd like
00:52:27
looked on. You know, obviously we've been
00:52:29
in this genre for a while. We've, we've dealt with Iran
00:52:31
before. So I've done my fair share of
00:52:33
Googling. Was Sam getting out like exfil
00:52:38
with Roy afterwards, like going through those checkpoints, going
00:52:40
on the side streets, getting to the getting to the Caspian?
00:52:43
Yes. That was the best part of like,
00:52:45
you know, being felt like you're put in a location.
00:52:48
Completely. So going down the rocks on the
00:52:50
beach, yes. Going into the surf.
00:52:52
I agree. That escape.
00:52:54
And that's when the book was humming That that, that sequence
00:52:57
really saved almost everything for me.
00:53:00
I'm I'm not going to take it too much, I'm going to give it 4.
00:53:03
So you say, I think the three is a little harsh, but I'm going to
00:53:06
stay there for what we talked about.
00:53:07
But there were parts that saved it.
00:53:08
There are parts that saved it for sure, dude, cover.
00:53:12
I mean, I don't know if you want to do free space first, but
00:53:14
cover it's it's I I love it because it's almost what I
00:53:18
wanted in the writing, because that screams Tehran, right, with
00:53:22
the mountains and the the snow caps and the the tower.
00:53:25
So I'm like, that's almost I wanted to feel like I was at
00:53:28
that scene. But look at this cover.
00:53:30
I don't know if the writing took me to this exact scene in the
00:53:33
cover or this background. There was only like a few times,
00:53:35
like I, I feel like they're mentioning the mountains with,
00:53:38
you know, his father and like, certain things with his mom.
00:53:42
That's true. Like, there was a little bit
00:53:45
there. But yeah, no, I agree.
00:53:46
This cover screams like it's first of all, I love whoever has
00:53:51
come up with like the McCloskey look.
00:53:54
They've been great. You know, we, we, we sing
00:53:57
praises of, of good covers and whoever's done these has been
00:54:02
great. This one for sure.
00:54:04
And it's where like I wanted more of this like yes, if if we
00:54:08
had gotten this on the page yes, then the setting would have been
00:54:12
a 5. Correct, but the cover I think
00:54:16
might be a 5. I it might be I'm going to get
00:54:19
A5 just. The number one reason is
00:54:22
choosing the landscape. It was almost missing in the
00:54:24
book. So seeing it on the cover, it's
00:54:26
like, yes. And the other part is it fits
00:54:28
the theme. I love when an author commits to
00:54:31
the bit and their team commits to the bit and they know what
00:54:34
that author style is and and they execute it perfectly.
00:54:39
They've done it with every book so far, starting with Damascus
00:54:42
Station right up to this. And so I think it's a clearly a
00:54:45
David McCloskey book. The yellow was such a great
00:54:48
choice that the blacks and the whites are great choice and
00:54:51
choosing the landscape is something I would have
00:54:54
absolutely wanted for this book. So five out of five for me on
00:54:58
the cover. All right, what's your free
00:55:02
space? There's a couple ways you can go
00:55:08
here. We've talked about the ending a
00:55:13
ton, so I I'd kind of think that would be a cheap one because
00:55:16
we've already sung its praises like that.
00:55:18
That's the free space. So if I had to dig into another
00:55:22
one, I think it's both. All of the recruitments.
00:55:25
I think every scene where somebody had to place by recruit
00:55:32
an asset, turn them to their cause, find what it is they're
00:55:36
looking for in life and lie to them to get them to achieve it.
00:55:40
Starting with the dentist chair, but then also ending up with
00:55:44
Glitzman capturing Roya and then ultimately having this plan for
00:55:49
the dentist to run Roya. Everything about the
00:55:54
recruitments in this book was absolutely knock on perfect.
00:55:58
That's a good one. So if I had five extra points to
00:56:03
give, I, I, I think I have to give it to the story arcs of of
00:56:10
Cam and Glitzman. Yes, to me, those two and for
00:56:14
some reason this and I I wish, you know, I'm not the quote guy,
00:56:17
like I said before, but I wish I had that quote where Glitzman
00:56:21
pretty much lays out in the hierarchy of there's us.
00:56:25
There's a clear delineation between, you know, yeah, he's a
00:56:29
Jew, but he's he's not one of us, you know, like so he is
00:56:32
expendable. And to see that story arc play
00:56:36
out for him, even at the very end, like what he's got like
00:56:40
teeth whitening, he's gotten hair plugs.
00:56:42
Like it's just interesting, right?
00:56:44
This guy like has gone on like this midlife prices, you know,
00:56:49
after getting his main asset taken and like to have this as a
00:56:55
successful mission as like you think about it, they had a
00:56:59
really good successful mission, but Cam got taken.
00:57:04
And then I get the sense of like, yeah, he's not all this
00:57:08
lovey dovey at the very end, but to me that was eating up at him.
00:57:13
And he fought for Cam to get paid like, you know, his monthly
00:57:17
salary while he was while he was away to get the quote UN quote.
00:57:23
What's the terminology? But essentially like
00:57:25
bereavement, you know, like you get a one time bereavement pay
00:57:29
for getting captured of half $1.
00:57:31
Like that's like, you know, he's like, it's kind of kind of crazy
00:57:35
that that's what the analysts, you know, judge our how much
00:57:39
we're worth they. Put a dollar value on it, yeah.
00:57:42
But the pain he. Became a human.
00:57:44
He became a human. Sure, yeah.
00:57:46
And then just, you know, seeing Sam like to go from this guy,
00:57:50
but yeah, sorry, not not Sam, not Sam Joseph.
00:57:53
Interesting how he Cam and Sam. That's another big, big thing
00:57:58
about this book because Sam Joseph and Artemis Proctor are
00:58:02
legendary characters and to have a book that's just a complete
00:58:06
another universe kind of disconnected from all that and
00:58:09
has nothing to do with them. Like we said, no CIA.
00:58:12
That's tough because something I want in a McCloskey book is an
00:58:16
Artemis Proctor type character or a Sam Joseph type character,
00:58:19
if not them, but as themselves. I see I see some of Sam Joseph
00:58:23
in Cam though. I do too.
00:58:25
This guy that had to doesn't have like you know, he's not
00:58:30
Mitch rap, he's not right. You know, the grey man, Sure.
00:58:33
But he, if he sees some Artemis into these, sure.
00:58:38
Yeah. It's like a, you know, a
00:58:39
different sort of take on that character.
00:58:43
So I'm saying like for not having those characters in the
00:58:46
book and not being in universe, if you will, this is a a major
00:58:50
triumph to to still write a book this engaging.
00:58:53
And that got me into it. When I come into it thinking
00:58:55
like, how does this compare to Sam Joseph?
00:58:57
How does this compare to Artemis Proctor?
00:58:59
It's not fair comparison, comparison to The Thief of Joy,
00:59:02
but this book did enough to make me forget about that.
00:59:08
So. All right, So what did that give
00:59:09
us? I end up with a 39 and you were
00:59:14
a little higher. A little higher 40.5.
00:59:18
Let's average that to a 40 because I think average together
00:59:20
40 is right where I probably would have pegged this book as I
00:59:23
was reading. It interesting that we scored a
00:59:25
a 40 and yet I'm singing its praises as like one of my top
00:59:29
books that I've read in in 2026. But I don't know for some reason
00:59:33
it just stuck with me. You know it's.
00:59:34
Said it might be your favorite of his.
00:59:38
I don't know to Matt. It's I think it's close to
00:59:41
Damascus station. Yeah, I think it's better than
00:59:43
Summit Floor. I I I wouldn't have said it
00:59:47
while I was reading it. Looking back on it, I I think I
00:59:51
would agree they're different. They're similar, but different.
00:59:55
It's it's I'll. Absolutely say it's a better,
00:59:57
it's a better story. It's a better written story.
01:00:00
For sure, I will absolutely say that as a reading experience, I
01:00:03
remember enjoying the 7th floor a lot and I didn't enjoy this
01:00:07
one for like a good third or half of it, so it's hard for me
01:00:11
to compare. But in the end, this is a better
01:00:14
work of fiction, I think. That wasn't because we were
01:00:16
bought into Artemis already, you know.
01:00:19
That was the third time we had seen her like.
01:00:21
Completely. Completely.
01:00:24
All right, Well, all I know is that I'm Dave McCloskey.
01:00:27
He put something out. I'm.
01:00:28
I'm reading it all the way through.
01:00:30
Yep, absolutely. And we're covering it on this
01:00:32
pod. Yeah.
01:00:35
You know what else I'm doing for all of David Mccloskey's books?
01:00:38
I'm writing a Limerick. All right, let's hear it.
01:00:41
There once was a spy from Tehran.
01:00:44
His dentist chair sparked a great plon with crayon as quill.
01:00:49
Many secrets he'll spill, but one of true love is most grand.
01:00:54
Oh, OK, you're stretching the rhyming there a little bit, but
01:00:57
I like I. Could have, I could have, said
01:00:59
Tehran Plan Grand, but I wanted to give it a little flair.
01:01:02
Day Ryan I write Iran Yeah. What was that Lee Greenwood song
01:01:07
or some shit like that Yeah, that's good.
01:01:09
That's good. No, it's guys stick with this
01:01:14
book. I I highly obviously, if you
01:01:17
listen this long, hopefully you've you've read this book,
01:01:21
but if you haven't, go back, give it a second chance.
01:01:25
Read it. So Next up on the pod, we are
01:01:30
covering Chris Howdy, dead ringer, super intriguing Kennedy
01:01:35
like retrospective. I am, like I said, I'm, I'm,
01:01:39
I'm, I think I'm 15 chapters in and I am, I'm hooked.
01:01:43
Like, yeah, I want to know where the story goes.
01:01:45
It could go off a Cliff, I don't know.
01:01:48
But it's. Wild.
01:01:49
And, and I knew it was a JFK conspiracy, kind of.
01:01:52
Yeah, me too, but our. Assassination story.
01:01:54
I didn't expect what you get right in the very beginning.
01:01:56
I did not expect it. And then it turns into like a
01:01:58
Steve Berry kind of historical. Yeah.
01:02:01
Adventure. Wow.
01:02:03
Wow. So far.
01:02:04
So yeah. All right, when, before we get
01:02:07
out of here, got to thank our patrons, speaking to patrons
01:02:11
tomorrow. We're going to be talking to
01:02:12
them. Hopefully next time when we when
01:02:15
we talk, we can just debrief what we have from our our what?
01:02:18
So we decided we're we're talking about fade in tomorrow,
01:02:22
right, Per Mark. Absolutely fade in from Mark and
01:02:25
Project Tale Mary on the side so.
01:02:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just kidding.
01:02:29
But before we get out of here, we got to thank our patrons, our
01:02:31
deputy directors, Sherry F and Brady special agents Adam, Mike,
01:02:36
Ben, Daryl, George, Matt, Dawn and Chris.
01:02:40
Please subscribe, rate and review to all three seasons.
01:02:43
No limits. You can find us anywhere.
01:02:45
You can get podcast, Apple, Spotify.
01:02:48
Check out our new website. Mike's put a lot of work into
01:02:51
that. It's looking great.
01:02:52
Thriller, pod.com, Twitter and Instagram at Thriller podcast.
01:02:58
And as always, let Cam be Cam.