Rule of Lies: My Wild Ride Through Chaos, Corruption, and Murder in Putin’s Russia

In this fascinating debut memoir, attorney Firestone explains “how a kid from New York founded a law firm in Moscow, had to flee for his life, and ended up in a pissing contest with the Putin regime.” Firestone’s father—a white-collar criminal who was indicted for defrauding investors—urged him to learn Russian at boarding school in the 1980s so he could enrich himself during the inevitable collapse of the USSR. After graduating from Tulane Law School, Firestone traveled to Moscow in 1991, hoping to cover his student loans by starting a law practice aimed at helping small businesses enter the free market. Over the next 18 years, the firm flourished, even as Firestone watched Russia go from “a land of infinite freedom, opportunity, and hope to a Mafia state, and from there to a dictatorship that attacks its own people.” After Sergei Magnitsky, an auditor for Firestone’s firm, discovered evidence of massive corruption within the Russian government in 2005, he was arrested and died in custody. Firestone details his ensuing battle to tell Magnitsky’s story alongside more personal struggles, including being forced partially into the closet by the Putin regime. Readers will find this a valuable eyewitness account of large-scale malfeasance in Russia. (June)