The Seventh Floor

A Novel

By: David McCloskey

Narrated by: Sharon Freedman

Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Six CIA officers. Dear friends and cherished enemies. For a quarter century they have stolen other people's secrets. Now they must steal each other's.

A Russian arrives in Singapore with a secret to sell. When the Russian is killed and Sam Joseph, the CIA officer dispatched for the meet, goes missing, operational chief Artemis Procter is made a scapegoat for the disaster and run out of the service. Months later, Sam appears at Procter's doorstep with an explosive secret: there is a Russian mole burrowed deep within the highest ranks of the CIA.

As Procter and Sam investigate, they arrive at a shortlist of suspects made up of both Procter's closest friends and fiercest enemies. The hunt requires Procter to dredge up her checkered past in the service of the CIA, placing the pair in the sights of a savvy Russian spymaster who will protect Moscow's mole in Langley at all costs. What happens when friendships forged by sweat and blood—from the Farm to Afghanistan and the executive "Seventh Floor" of CIA's Langley headquarters—are put to the ultimate test? What can we truly know about the people we love the most?

©2024 David McCloskey (P)2024 Tantor

In fiction and non-fiction life is not fair

After chapter 59 I wanted to stop listening to the book and give it a one star thumbs down review. After chapter 60 I was willing to give it a one star. Holy crap this book!!! Deep breath, take a break and rethink my review. I listened to this book again and no it did not deserve a one star. It deserves the highest review mark. Sometimes, as in life, you do not get the ending you want. Afterall, there are real stars in the CIA that represent an ending you did not want. I have a feeling the one star reviews may be from those who are upset/disappointed with the end of a beloved character.
This book brings back Sam from Damascus Station. McCluskey put Sam through so much in two books. In Damascus Station he is almost killed and he doesn’t get the girl. In this book he is kidnapped, tortured, fired and, and …..McCluskey!!
In this book we get to know more about Artimis Proctor, the relentless, badass CIA chief. She is relentless and loyal. I hope in the next book we get to know more about Proctor and Sweet's last conversation and how Proctor was convinced to go back to the CIA. Although it probably didn’t take much convincing.
You don’t find out who the mole is until almost the very end. As we have come to expect from David McCluskey, this is a brilliantly written chest game with many twists, unexpected turns, and bursts of action. Well done, well done.
I miss Andrew Wehelens narration but this book was mostly about Proctor so I got the change. Sharon Freedman was really good.

no

skip the cliched dialog and all the stupid stuff (baseball, allegators...) and it could have been great. overly dramatic narration. should have read it instead, i skipped a lot of the silly stuff.