David McCloskey
Moscow X
DOSSIER: If you could do one of the following, which would it be and why? Have unfettered access to the CIA sublevel warehouse where they keep rows and rows of “stuff in boxes,” unrestricted viewing of the full polygraph examination for any current or former senior CIA official who “met with a scandal,” or host a Family Feud-style game show that pits clever CIA analysts against those quirky case officers?
MCCLOSKEY: Definitely access to the ‘stuff in boxes.’ The best stuff is probably down there!
DOSSIER: You’ve described the environment at the CIA as “bi-polar.” That’s probably not going to make it onto a recruiting poster, but what’s more paradoxical—things on the 7th floor (management) or the rest of the organization?
MCCLOSKEY: I think the paradox is that the mass of the organization works like a dysfunctional Fortune 500 company in many respects – missing office supplies, drowning in email, etc – and then in others like the most badass version of the CIA in spy movies. Tough to wrap your head around. Seventh Floor in many respects operates just like the senior management at any company – for good and ill.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you thrive in? (Music/silence/the wine bar at Central Market in Dallas?)
MCCLOSKEY: Coffee shop, all the time. Headphones on listening to the same song or album on repeat.
DOSSIER: When your novel DAMASCUS STATION came out as such a big hit, did you already have the story for MOSCOW X going in your head (or on paper), or did you have to stop and say, “Oh, wow. What just happened? Now I have to do that again?”
MCCLOSKEY: I didn’t have the story on paper or in my head. I just knew I had to keep writing, and through the writing I found the story. I will say that I did think, more than a few times, ‘do I really have to do this all over again?’
Unfortunately the answer was, and continues to be, ‘yes.’
DOSSIER: Former CIA employees such as yourself and I.S. Berry have a certain way of making your inside knowledge come across in your writing as authentic without divulging classified material. It just sounds so real. Do you worry about the pre- publication process and getting back too many redactions?
MCCLOSKEY: Not really. I source my novels so the pub review board knows I’m not dredging certain facts up from the classified regions of my brain, which takes some pressure off. I always do screen some things in the writing process because I know I can’t write them down, much less publish them. The PRB, at least in my experience, has always been efficient and fair.
Website: David McCloskey Books Amazon author page
Jeff Circle 