This is such a clever, gripping spy novel, but it was only when I reluctantly closed the book & instantly checked to see what else Mr. McCloskey had written that I realised that “The Seventh Floor” is actually the 3rd in a series.
So back tracking is now on the cards.
But before that, back to “The Seventh Floor”.
We are plunged into the dramatic world of the wonderfully named Artemis Procter and her CIA colleagues, all now doing head office jobs after postings overseas. The most notable of these foreign postings was Afghanistan, which is referenced a lot, but we are well into the book before we learn what happened in Afghanistan to forge such a virtually unbreakable bond between Artemis & her male colleagues.
Artemis is a maverick – alcoholic, foul mouthed & 100% loyal to her chosen career and her close band of colleagues. The kidnapping of one of these, Sam Joseph, leads to Artemis losing her job with the CIA yet when Sam eventually reappears, he turns up at her door with news of a Russian mole burrowed deep within the highest ranks of the CIA.
Artemis and Sam decide to investigate, but their eventual shortlist of suspects is made up of both Artemis’s fiercest enemies and, disconcertingly, some of her closest friends. Their investigation forces them to confront uncomfortable questions, such as what happens when friendships, however deep and however long, are put to the test. And what happens when people you thought you knew and trusted implicitly turn out to be otherwise.
Friendship, loyalty, deception, danger are all part of this story.
Recommended.