The Seventh Floor by David McCloskey

Not a Book Report

I enjoy reflecting on the movies, TV, books and other media that I consume. I’m notoriously sentimental. This series documents the books that I read. These aren’t reviews or recommendations. Just a list. For me. Mostly so that I can page through what I read, where I was, and when.

Why did I read it?

I finished and liked Moscow X, and then I finished and liked Damascus Station, and then I finished and liked The Persian, so I figured it was time to follow my usual routine and keep reading everything the author has ever published.

What is it?

Publisher Summary

Six CIA officers. Dear friends and cherished enemies. For a quarter century they have stolen other people’s secrets. Now they must steal each other’s.

A Russian arrives in Singapore with a secret to sell. When the Russian is killed and Sam Joseph, the CIA officer dispatched for the meet, goes missing, operational chief Artemis Procter is made a scapegoat for the disaster and run out of the service. Months later, Sam appears at Procter’s doorstep with an explosive secret: there is a Russian mole burrowed deep within the highest ranks of the CIA.

As Procter and Sam investigate, they arrive at a shortlist of suspects made up of both Procter’s closest friends and fiercest enemies. The hunt requires Procter to dredge up her checkered past in the service of the CIA, placing the pair in the sights of a savvy Russian spymaster who will protect Moscow’s mole in Langley at all costs. What happens when friendships forged by sweat and blood—from the Farm to Afghanistan and the executive “Seventh Floor” of CIA’s Langley headquarters—are put to the ultimate test? What can we truly know about the people we love the most?

Taking readers from Langley to Moscow to Paris and beyond, The Seventh Floor explores the nature of friendship in a faithless business, and what it means to love a place that does not love you back.

How did I read it?

Notes – No Spoilers

• I realize I am reading some of these out of order (at least, when compared to the order in which he wrote them). Didn’t matter too much.
• This took me a while to finish compared to the others. I think that was a combination of things. My toddler brough home multiple illnesses this month and some of those also caught me. And I found the structure less exciting. I know this is a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy inspired book (which is a book I love) but the tradeoff is that it moves slower than the more singular plot stories of his other novels.