David McCloskey, former CIA analyst and best-selling author, takes readers deep into the shadow war between Iran and Israel.

Kamran Esfahani, a dentist living out a dreary existence in Stockholm, agrees to spy for the Mossad after he’s recruited by Arik Glitzman, the chief of a clandestine unit tasked with running targeted assassinations and sabotage inside Iran. At Glitzman’s direction, Kam returns to his native Tehran and opens a dental practice there, using it as a cover for the Israeli intelligence agency. Kam proves to be a skilful asset, quietly earning money helping Glitzman smuggle weapons, run surveillance, and conduct kidnappings. But when Kam tries to recruit an Iranian widow seeking to avenge the death of her husband at the hands of the Mossad, the operation goes terribly wrong, landing him in prison under the watchful eye of a sadistic officer whom he knows only as the “General.”

After enduring three years of torture in captivity, Kamran Esfahani sits in an interrogation room across from the General, preparing to write his final confession.

Kam definitely knows it is too late to save himself, But he has managed to keep one secret- only one- and he just might be able to save that. In this haunting thriller, careening between Tehran and Tel Aviv, Istanbul and Stockholm, David McCloskey delivers an intricate story of vengeance, deceit and the power of love and forgiveness in a world of lies.

The Persian by David McCloskey, W.W.Norton & Company, £20, 400 pages.