This is CBS I in the World.

I'm John Batcher with David McCluskey.

His work of fiction, a novel, is a thriller.

CIA thriller, you could say, but it's a thriller of modern Syria.

Unfinished business.

Damascus Station, praised by David Petrez, praised by Leon Panetta.

But then again, they were in office during this period where

there was nothing to be done with the scale of tragedy.

There is horror in your book, David, and you mean it to be there because

what I know of reporting about Syria these many years, the Syrian regime,

the Mukba Harat or whatever drives them are monsters.

And the abuse of human beings is infamous.

And you make it very clear that there are no limits.

Again and again, you come up against villains worrying about losing their soul,

or I've lost my soul, the despair is here.

So your lessons learned, David, having pulled the America,

the virtue of American gambler through all of this, does it touch a character

to spend so much of his energy going up against monsters?

Did you think about Sam in his relationship towards Syria?

It made me feel now and again reading the book, soiled.

As if, why am I here? What am I doing?

This is deviltry and I'm in Hades.

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