Damascus Station by David McCloskey

Publsihed by ‎ W. W. Norton & Company on October 5, 2021

Damascus Station does what a spy thriller should do. It engages the imagination with tradecraft, appeals to the intellect with political intrigue, and excites the senses with action scenes. Some of the action takes place in the bedroom (or other convenient locations). More violent scenes play out in the streets and buildings of Damascus.

Much of the story takes place in Syria, where a brutal dictatorship is fighting a war against rebels. Samuel Joseph works for the CIA. His Levantine Arabic is flawless. He begins the novel in Damascus, where he has been sent to exfiltrate an asset, as well as Val Owens, the asset’s handler who is in Syria under diplomatic cover. The mission does not go well, particularly for Val.

A well-educated woman named Miriam, a Syrian general’s daughter, secretly opposes the government that employs her. Miriam’s cousin Razan makes no effort to hide her disdain for the Syrian president. She gets away with it because her father has a position in the government that allows him to shield her.

Sam is sent to Paris, where Miriam is attempting to coerce a brave Syrian woman into returning to Syria and renouncing her criticism of the Syrian regime. Miriam must threaten harm to the woman’s family to carry out her mission, threats that cause her to despise herself. Sam’s task is to recruit Miriam as a double agent for the CIA. The task is easy to accomplish, both because Miriam hates the ruling regime and because she feels an immediate sexual attraction to Sam. The rules prohibit Sam from acting on that attraction, but rules have never stopped fictional spies from hopping into bed with assets. Sam puts his career at risk and, as is the custom in novels of this nature, falls in love with Miriam.

Miriam is the kind of character a reader might love, as well. She’s intelligent, a fierce warrior, and willing to take risks to fight the leaders she serves. Sam is your prototypical spy, stalwart and loyal and an all-around good guy apart from his inability to keep it in his pants. My favorite character might be the tough chief of station in Damascus. She’s vulgar, lethal with a shotgun, and proclaims herself (with some justification) to be the Angel of Death.

The plot takes Sam to Damascus, where he follows Miriam as her handler, using the usual diplomatic cover for his spying. Spy novels are all about betrayal, and the time comes when Sam must question whether Miriam is playing him. That’s the kind of plot point that makes espionage novels so addictive.

Word gets the US that the Syrian president intends to use sarin gas to wipe out a city in rebellion. That’s a step too far for the US, as is the capture and beheading of an American. The US intends a targeted assassination in retribution for the murder and selective bombing to prevent the use of sarin. The story eventually brings the US and Syria to the brink (or slightly over the brink) of war. By the end, Sam and Miriam are both in peril. Quick thinking and sacrifice offers the only hope of averting disaster.

The story features the usual tradecraft — a good thing, because tradecraft establishes a spy novel’s identity — including dead drops and (perhaps too many) surveillance detection routes, all taught to Miriam in a frenzy. The theme of a spy breaking the rules by getting sexually involved with a source that he’s running is familiar, but it’s a credible theme that works well in the context of the story. The action scenes in the novel’s second half justify the novel’s categorization as a thriller. The balance between action, political intrigue, and relationship drama is just about perfect. And the ending, without being artificially happy, is at least hopeful.

RECOMMENDED

Red Traitor by Owen Matthews

Published by Doubleday on July 20, 2021

Notwithstanding its unfortunate title, Red Traitor is a smart, entertaining spy novel that is told from an unusual perspective. Although a few American characters appear, the protagonist and most of the key characters are Russian. The story primarily alternates between Moscow and a Russian submarine near Cuba. The events are loosely based on a Cold War incident in which Russian submarines were armed with nuclear torpedoes, and on a Russian (the traitor in the title) who provided clandestine information to the United States.

The novel takes place during the Kennedy Administration. Russia is establishing a military presence in Cuba and America is on the brink of war. The more important war that the story showcases is between two intelligence agencies in the USSR: the KGB and the GRU.

Alexander Vasin is a lieutenant colonel in the KGB and a favorite of his superior, Lieutenant General Yury Orlov. Vasin became a favorite by blaming a problem on an American spy. While the details of Vasin’s previous mission are described in Black Sun, it isn’t necessary to read Black Sun to understand Red Traitor.

Vasin invented the American spy, but Orlov doesn’t know that, or perhaps doesn’t care. Orlov’s mission is to undermine General Ivan Serov, head of the GRU and his chief rival for power. To that end, Orlov wants to prove that the spy works for Serov. Orlov has a candidate in mind — Oleg Morozov, a colonel in the GRU — but has only circumstantial proof that Morozov is a traitor. Orlov wants Vasin to find evidence that Morozov is a spy and isn’t overly concerned whether the evidence reflects reality.

Morozov has been behaving suspiciously, in part by collecting information from Sofia Guzman, a translator who has access to information about a secret project. The project involves the installation of long-range missile bases in Cuba. News of the project has made its way to American intelligence, making Morozov the likely source of the leak.

Vasin learns of a related project — the arming of submarines with nuclear torpedoes that are sailing to Cuba. Kennedy is creating a naval blockade around Cuba. A Russian lunatic, without the knowledge of Khrushchev, has ordered the submarine commander to launch the torpedo if the Russian subs are attacked while trying to run the blockade. Vasin knows that this will trigger a nuclear war and the likely destruction of Russia. He resolves to use his own initiative to stop the war, even if doing so might make him a traitor.

Part of the action takes place on one of the subs, where the fleet commander is at odds with a submarine captain who is eager to fire the first strike. Much of the novel’s tension comes from that underwater conflict, although Vasin’s tricky relationships with Orlov, Morozov, and Guzman add to the drama.

Like Black Sun, Red Traitor succeeds in part because the story is based on real events and in part because Vasin is a dark character who does not equate loyalty to his county to loyalty to autocrats who are willing to harm his country to achieve their personal ends. Owen Matthews keeps the various plot elements in constant motion, building suspense that is only partially tempered by the reader’s knowledge that nuclear war did not break out in 1962. Exactly how that war will be prevented, however, is something that the reader won’t know until late in the novel. The second Vasin novel is as strong as the first, making Matthews’ unusual look at espionage from a Russian perspective a good choice for fans of spy fiction.

RECOMMENDED

The Cover Wife by Dan Fesperman

Published by Knopf on July 6, 2021

In a certain kind of spy novel, nothing is as it seems. There are secrets within secrets. False identities conceal other false identities. Telling the good guys from the bad, the truth from lies, becomes as difficult for the reader as it is for the protagonist. Spy novels of that nature are good fun when they are handled skillfully. The Cover Wife is Dan Fesperman’s tutorial in deception.

Professor Winston Armitage, a scholar of Aramaic and Arabic languages, has written a book that contends the Quran has been mistranslated. The virgins that have been promised to martyrs are actually raisins or white grapes. Since terrorists would be unlikely to sacrifice their lives for raisins in the afterlife, even particularly delicious raisins, the book is intended to cause a stir in the terrorist community. At least, the CIA hopes that will be the result. Armitage is going on a book tour at the CIA’s expense, a scheme of information warfare cooked up by Paul Bridger, who manages operations across Europe.

Claire Saylor has a complicated history with Bridger. He assigns Claire to the team that will guard Armitage. She will play the role of Armitage’s wife. In an unofficial role, Bridger wants Claire to conduct surveillance in Hamburg. She conducts unofficial surveillance of her own and photographs someone in Hamburg who might be running the operation, using Bridger as a front.

Two other characters in Hamburg are important to the story. One is a young man named Mahmoud who seems to be a willing and eager recruit to Osama bin Laden’s cause. The other is Ken Donlan, an FBI agent in Hamburg who has worked with Claire in the past. Claire and Ken encounter each other while they are both keeping a clandestine eye on Mahmoud.

They observe that Mahmoud seems to be getting along well with a group of young Muslims who are associated with terrorism. One member of the group is getting married. Another of Mahmoud's friends is already married but is being sent away on a mission. The young man’s headstrong wife entreats Mahmoud to talk her husband out of doing whatever he has been assigned to do. Mahmoud is enchanted and unnerved by the woman’s beauty. Even seeing her uncovered face seems like a sin for which he will need to atone. Mahmoud feels torn by divided loyalty to his friend and to a woman who will be at risk if she interferes with his friend’s assignment.

The plot could move in many directions. Part of the intrigue is generated by uncertainty. What is the story about? What is Bridger’s endgame? Who is the mysterious man in Claire’s photograph? What plan is taking Mahmoud and his friends away from Hamburg? The questions eventually converge, yielding a surprising answer that causes the reader to rethink assumptions about how the plot has unfolded. Fesperman misleads the reader, but only because his characters are misled. In fact, the reader will come to understand the story’s key truth before it becomes apparent to the characters.

Claire and Ken are reasonably complex and likable characters. They play the civil servant role that is common in espionage thrillers — spies who want to do the right thing but haven’t been told the secrets that will help them understand what is right and what is wrong. They work for bureaucrats who are also common in spy thrillers, employees who have risen in the ranks because of their ability to stab others in the back to protect their positions.

Fesperman conceived an excellent idea and avoided being overly ambitious in its execution. He puts all of those elements into play to tell a relatively simple story that seems complex to the characters, simply because they aren’t allowed to see the big picture. For pulling off a credible surprise — the kind of surprise that, when the truth dawns on the reader, will provoke an “Oh wow” — at the end of an entertaining story, Fesperman earns an easy recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

Shadow Target by David Ricciardi

Published by Berkley on June 15, 2021

Shadow Target is the fourth book in the Jake Keller series. I was indifferent to the first novel and didn’t read the next two. The fourth installment isn’t a bad action novel.

Jake works for the CIA in its “elite Special Activities Center,” meaning he kills people who, in the divine wisdom of the CIA, ought to be dead. He used to be named Zachary but he changed his face and name in response to adverse publicity. Not that paramilitary CIA officers are ever likely to attract favorable publicity.

The novel begins with a plane crash in the Alps. Jake is the only survivor, a tribute to the good luck enjoyed by thriller heroes. Jake crawls into the woods and conceals himself as a helicopter lands. The killers on the helicopter who want to seal his fate are chased away by a rescue helicopter before they can find Jake. When Jake wakes up, he has a dim memory of seeing something that explains the crash but he can’t remember what he saw. He is pretty sure, however, that someone tried to kill him.

As Jake frets about his lost memory and the foiled attempt on his life, he becomes convinced that too many other paramilitary operatives have been dying. His superiors don’t seem to have noticed, or they’ve chalked it up to a dangerous job. Jake decides that someone is deliberately killing CIA agents and that a betrayer in the CIA must be facilitating that project by providing information about agents’ identities and missions. Jake makes it his mission to save his own life and the lives of other CIA agents by learning the identities of the betrayer and the person who is orchestrating the betrayal.

Shadow Target is a standard action novel. In the words of Shadow, the CIA officer who is helping the bad guy, Jake is “the best paramilitary officer I’ve ever seen.” Of course he is. Unlike truly bad action fiction, Jake isn’t infallible or invulnerable, although he’s certainly hard to kill. Like nearly all action spies, he “threads the needle” between “doing what he thinks is right” and doing what he’s told to do. There’s nothing new or particularly interesting in Jake’s characterization. He does, however, have a thing going with a French spy — or at least he did before he changed his name and face and was presumed dead. She’s a bit cheesed off when he resurfaces after a period of being dead, without having sent so much as a postcard. The relationship and Jake’s total inability to understand women humanizes him.

While he’s going about his business, Jake discovers that a fellow named Nikolai Kozlov has a plan to kill a Very Important Person during a London visit. The plan involves an unlikely weapon and opening a window to use it, something that security police are likely to notice, but what the heck. Kozlov has some operatives of his own who are tasked with killing Jake because he’s the only person in the world who is likely to stop the assassination. Naturally, they aren’t up to Jake’s standards. Again, this is standard fare, but Jake’s ability to survive the various attempts to kill him keep the story moving at a good pace.

The plot delivers few surprises, but it does produce some fun action scenes. David Ricciardi’s explanation for the initial targeting of Jake is a bit convoluted but that’s life in the world of modern thrillers. In fact, the reason for Kozlov’s targeting of paramilitary CIA operatives in general is convoluted, in part because Ricciardi uses misdirection to keep the reader (or Jake) guessing. In the end, I was willing to buy into the story for the sake of enjoying the action, even if the plot skates on a thin sheet of credibility.

RECOMMENDED

The Old Enemy by Henry Porter

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on June 8, 2021

The Old Enemy continues and perhaps concludes the story that began in Firefly. While The Old Enemy is the third book in a series, a reader can enjoy it as a standalone thriller.

The novel begins with the murder of a retired and revered spy named Robert Harland. As death is approaching, Harland manages to leave a message for his wife that identifies his killer. Finding the code that explains the message is one of the many tasks that Harland’s old friend, Paul Samson, eventually undertakes.

Before he learns of Harland’s death, however, Samson is busy protecting Zoe Freemantle, who works for an organization called GreenState. Samson has been assigned that task by Macy Harp, the head of the private intelligence firm that is Samson’s employer. Samson doesn’t know why he’s protecting Freemantle, nor does Freemantle know that Samson has been hired to protect her. She might even think he’s stalking her. Samson only knows that Freemantle seems to have a connection to a building that has attracted the attention of government agencies in Great Britain and elsewhere. As Freemantle approaches that building, someone attacks Samson with a knife, but whether the attacker was targeting Samson or Freemantle is unclear.

As all of that unfolds, Denis Hisami is preparing to give testimony before Congress. Hisami is married to Anastasia Christakos. In an earlier novel, Samson rescued Anastasia from a kidnapping and now carries a torch for her. Hisami is about to reveal a major conspiracy that has reached high levels of government in the US and UK, but he’s poisoned before he reaches that point in his testimony.

Samson initially wonders whether Russians are getting even with all the people who played a role in recovering Anastasia from her kidnappers. The murder of Harland and the attempted murders of Hisami and Samson turn out to be part of a more complicated conspiracy. Samson pieces the conspiracy together with the help of his hacker friend Naji Touma, a resourceful young man Samson rescued in Firefly. Samson finds it difficult to pin down Naji to find out what he knows, a difficulty of intelligence gathering that bedevils Samson throughout the novel.

Despite the conspiracy’s complexity, the reader isn’t likely to get lost. Henry Porter provides internal summaries and other reminders of events that are critical to the plot, including important moments from the first two novels. The plot never becomes convoluted. Porter peppers the plot with action scenes without dumbing down the story. Like most fictional conspiracies, this one is driven by money and power. I’ll give Porter credit for crafting a credible conspiracy, or at least one that is more plausible than a typical Ludlum conspiracy.

I also give Porter credit for creating an interesting character in Paul Samson. He has the kind of tortured personality that makes a spy sympathetic. The plot takes Samson to various settings around the world while making clear that “the old enemy” — Russia — is still the one most likely to make serious trouble for western democracies. I don’t know if he intends to bring back Porter in future novels, but he is a worthy addition to the canon of fictional spies who make espionage fiction so enjoyable.

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