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Can This Be Fiction? Ex-CIA Novelist Takes Us Inside Israel’s Covert Ops in Iran

David McCloskey shifts from Russia to Iran in his latest great spy thriller, “The Persian.”

Jeff Stein's avatar
Jeff Stein
Oct 04, 2025
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David McCloskey (author photo)

Picture this: One of Israel’s top spies in Iran is a dentist. That’s right, you could say Mossad agent Kamran Esfahani is well positioned to look right into the mouths of Tehran’s senior officials. But that’s not to say The Persian is in any way a comic novel: It’s a deadly serious, if absolutely entertaining, journey into …

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