Licence to Spill is a Spybrary's Q&A series in which spy authors are grilled by spy thriller book fans.
Licence to Spill with author and podcaster David McCloskey
Welcome to Licence to Spill, Spybrary’s spy author Q&A series, where we put spy writers under the spotlight and ask them the questions spy thriller readers really want answered. This time it's former CIA Analyist turned podcaster (The Rest is Classified) and spy thriller author David McCloskey.
Former CIA analyst David McCloskey has rapidly established himself as one of the most distinctive voices in modern spy thrillers. With London Station, he returns to the world of Artemis Procter and contemporary CIA espionage. Spybrary caught up with McCloskey to discuss writing spy fiction, research, villains, favourite espionage novels, what inspires his writing and his 3 dream spy dinner party guests.
David McCloskey answers his interrogator, Spybrary's Shane Whaley – September 2026. You can also listen to David McCloskey discussing his spy thrillers on the Spybrary Spy Podcast.
As we go to pexel you can now pre-order David's latest novel (and I think his best yet) London Station.
US Release Date: September 29, 2026 (Hardcover and eBook)
UK Release Date: October 8, 2026 (Hardback)
- Take us back to the beginning — what was the book or author that made you think, “I want to write spy fiction”? For those new to your work, where do you recommend Spybrary readers start?
Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. I read it after leaving CIA and loved how he centered his storytelling on CIA case officers, not superhero spies.
1a For those new to your work, where do you recommend Spybrary readers start?
Begin at the beginning with Damascus Station. (Those all his books can be read standalone including London Station. Shane)
2. Walk us through your research process. Are you an “immerse yourself for months before writing” person? Do you visit and scope out locations?
I research as I write. I find that the story changes quite a lot along the way, and so frontloading the process with research means I’ll wind up investigating a good many questions unnecessarily.
3. Which era of espionage is your absolute favourite era to write in, and what makes it so irresistible?
The present day. I quite enjoy exploring modern geopolitical faultlines because as I write I gain a greater understanding of what’s actually happening in the world today. I’m a learner, and I love knowing how the world works, so that’s irresistible to me.
4. Which spy fiction book do you wish you had written yourself — and why?
The Human Factor by Graham Greene. He manages to make us empathize with a traitor, no mean feat.
5. What are you reading right now — and what's the one book in your TBR pile you keep meaning to get to but haven't yet?
Right now I’m reading a work of nonfiction called The Lost City of Z by David Grann. It’s part historical adventure tale about the exploration of the Amazon, and part detective story, about the fate of a British explorer who disappeared into the jungle and never came back. As for the TBR pile, which is quite mountainous at the moment, I keep putting off a re-read of Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace, about the formation of the modern Middle East in the years after the Great War.
6. Great spy fiction lives or dies on its antagonists. What makes a truly great spy fiction villain — and how do you approach writing yours?
A great villain of course doesn’t think he or she is a villain, and so I think what makes them great is not necessarily their villainy (though that can be quite fun when done right). Rather, it’s that they are a worthy adversary to the protagonist: clever, cunning, and driven. Not a cartoon, and not an idiot.
7. What's the one detail — a location, a piece of tradecraft, a historical fact — you uncovered during research that was so good you had to put it in the book?
Recency bias here, but a great tidbit I came across while writing my latest, London Station, is a leak from inside the FBI about the current Director’s preferences for social interactions with his British counterparts. I won’t spoil it but it features the idea of conducting meetings with MI5 officials on jet skis.
8. What is the strangest or most unexpected place/situation/person/story you have ever taken inspiration for a plot or character from?
The answer is as amusing as it is classified! (I am deadly serious).
9. Which of your own characters would you most want running an operation you were part of — and which one would you absolutely not trust with your life?
I’d want Artemis Procter running the op, even if she would be hell to work with or for. And who would I not trust with my life? Probably one of the villainous Russian baddies from Moscow X.
10. Is there a spy fiction author working today who you think deserves far more attention than they're getting? And what's the one book of theirs you'd start with.
I don’t know how to answer this question without implying someone isn’t getting attention, but two I’d like to see selling a million copies are Simon Conway and I.S. Berry.
11. You're hosting the ultimate spy fiction dinner party — three guests, real or fictional, living or dead. Who's at the table?
I think it’s about people that would be fun to have dinner with, not necessarily the most important in the spying world. So I’d say
Graham Greene, Kim Philby, and James Jesus Angleton.
12.. What's next for you — and is there anything about your current project you can tease us with?
My next novel, London Station, is out in the US in September and the UK a week later, in early October. Artemis Aphrodite Procter returns, and she’s posted to London by a new CIA Director with some…ahem…very unconventional ideas about shaking up the Special Relationship. It’s a story about what it might look like if the Brits and Americans began spying on each other once again, and what happens when politics infect the spy business. I could not be more excited to get this one out there.
What is your favourite David McCloskey novel? Why not join our Spybrary Community of over 5000 fellow spy fans and let us know?
Follow David McCloskey on Instagram
David McCloskey Official Website
The Rest is Classified Podcast
More Spy Author Interviews – Licence to Spill
Charles Beaumont on Writing
Simon Conway
Michael Frost Beckner on Writing Spy Fiction
Paul Vidich on Writing Spy Fiction
James Stejskal on Writing Spy Fiction
I.S. Berry on Writing Spy Fiction
Dan Fesperman on Writing Spy Fiction
Alex Gerlis on Writing Spy Fiction
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