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The John Batchelor Show

THE FORGOTTEN 20-YEAR WAR: #Syria: 4/4: Damascus Station: A Novel, by David McCloskey. .

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Photo: Cairo 1892. No known restrictions on publication.
@Batchelorshow

THE FORGOTTEN 20-YEAR WAR: #Syria: 4/4: Damascus Station: A Novel, by David McCloskey. .

CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy.

But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Peloton has loads of supermotivating classes. I did an invigorating cycling class just this morning,

0:06.8

but Peloton is also indoor running on the tread and an app for yoga in the park,

0:12.1

dance cardio in the kitchen or boxing, well, we're of your fancy. I'm now trying a Peloton

0:17.6

sleep meditation. I wonder how long it takes to... Peloton, for anyone, anywhere. Internet

0:24.6

connection and Peloton all access membership required age, height and weight restriction supply,

0:28.1

C-1 Peloton.co.uk.

0:35.0

This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchel with David McCloskey. His work of fiction,

0:40.1

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

0:46.6

unfinished business. Damascus Station, praised by David Patres, praised by Leon Panetta,

0:53.2

but then again, they were in office during this period where there was nothing to be done with

0:59.2

the scale of tragedy. There is horror in your book, David, and you mean it to be there because what

1:04.7

I know of reporting about Syria these many years, the Syrian regime, the Mukba Harat or whatever

1:11.8

drives them are monsters. And the abuse of human beings is infamous. And you make it very clear

1:22.0

that there are no limits. Again and again, you come up against villains worrying about losing their

1:29.6

soul or I've lost my soul. The despair is here. So your lessons learned, David, having pulled

1:35.9

the America, the virtue is American gambler through all of this. Does it touch a character to

1:42.1

spend so much of his energy going up against monsters? Did you think about Sam in his relationship

1:50.5

towards Syria? It made me feel now and again reading the book, soiled, as if why am I here?

1:57.0

What am I doing? This is deviltry and I'm in Hades.

2:04.0

Well, I think you know, the book was really born out of some emotional processing that I was

2:12.8

doing when I left the agency about what I had seen and experienced working on Syria at that time.

2:20.4

And I wanted that raw feeling to be there. I wanted it to be told not just through the eyes

...

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