Hello,

Hello,

true

listeners.

Welcome back to True Spies, Debrief.

David McCloskey is a modern-day John Lacaree.

After leaving his post as an analyst at the CIA, he became the author of four popular works

of fiction.

More recently, he joined forces with journalist Gordon Carrera to co-host the podcast, The Rest

is Classified.

David sat down with true spies,

producer Morgan Childs, to discuss his latest novel, The Persian, the challenges of getting past the CIA's review board and the cathartic pleasures of turning real-life espionage into best-selling

books. David, thank you for being here.

Your new book, The Persian, is about the shadow war between Iran and Israel.

I'm interested to know what it's like to write a novel like yours and then to see the news

unfold the way that I did in June of this year.

Well, thanks for having me on. It's really a pleasure to be here.

So I was somewhat relieved in June that the book had already gone to press so that I didn't

have to make any changes because I've actually had this happen before on my second novel,

Moscow X. I was done with the first draft. It's like a Russia-focused by Moscow X. I was done with the first draft.

It's like a Russia focus by novel. I was done with the first draft when Putin invaded Ukraine.

And so I still had time, unfortunately, to make changes. I had to go into the manuscript and really, like,

...