We are delighted to welcome Jamison R. Firestone to the Authors’ Club to talk about Rule of Lies: My Wild Ride Through Chaos, Corruption, and Murder in Putin’s Russia (William Collins).

Raised by his father, a multimillionaire conman who ran Manhattan’s most expensive brothel, twenty-four-year-old Jamison Firestone decided to change the channel. He graduated from law school in 1991 and moved to Gorbachev’s USSR to establish the first independent foreign law firm in Moscow.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Jamison lived in the maelstrom that was Russia, defending himself and his clients from mafia attacks, dealing with corrupt police officers, having his law office raided by armed commandos, and once having to bug the offices of the Russian police. He was at the centre of some of Russia’s most important events. He employed Sergei Magnitsky who was murdered for uncovering the largest tax theft in Russian history and teamed up with Bill Browder and Alexei Navalny to expose his killers. Along the way he inadvertently taught Navalny to make videos exposing corruption and started a war with the Russian government over passage of the Magnitsky Acts which threatened to sanction Russia’s most powerful people.

A real-life story that reads like a spy novel, Rule of Lies goes deep inside contemporary Russia and events that have reshaped the globe. Darkly comic, sometimes horrifying and deeply moving, it is a chilling warning of what can happen when a nascent democracy succumbs to one man’s corrupt iron rule, becoming not only an authoritarian nation but a profoundly criminal one—a true mafia state.

Jamison R. Firestone established the first independent foreign law firm in Russia where he lived for 18 years. He is a co-founder along with Sir William Browder of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign which created the Magnitsky human rights and anti corruption sanctions regimes. He also ran the Navalny 35 campaign promoting the sanctioning of corrupt oligarchs and officials identified by Alexei Navalny. He currently works on seizing Russian state assets for the benefit of Ukraine.

As vivid and compelling as a John Le Carre thriller. Jamison Firestone tells the true story of his David vs Goliath struggle against the Russian state.’ Luke Harding

To book please contact the booking office at bookings@nlc.org.uk or call 020 7968 0912

The two-course lunch, followed by coffee, costs £39. It’s in the Lady Violet Room and we start with drinks at 12:30pm.  Please book early and inform the club of any dietary requirements.