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Rule of Lies: My Wild Ride Through Chaos, Corruption, and Murder in Putin's Russia
An American lawyer’s brilliant, propulsive story of witnessing and playing a part in the transformation of Russia under Yeltsin and Putin, a true tale of fascinating personalities, criminal intrigue, harrowing situations, audacious actions and international politics that combines Bill Browder’s Red Notice with Michael Lewis’s Liar's Poker.
Raised by his father, a multimillionaire conman and crack addict who owned Manhattan’s most expensive brothel, twenty-four- year-old Jamison Firestone decided to change the channel. He graduated from law school in 1991 and sought his fortune in Gorbachev’s USSR establishing Russia’s first independent foreign law firm.
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.
Jamison was at the center 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.
Raised by his father, a multimillionaire conman and crack addict who owned Manhattan’s most expensive brothel, twenty-four- year-old Jamison Firestone decided to change the channel. He graduated from law school in 1991 and sought his fortune in Gorbachev’s USSR establishing Russia’s first independent foreign law firm.
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.
Jamison was at the center 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.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published June 26, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 29, 2026
Very interesting and a side of history and current affairs that I hadn’t looked into in much depth before. So well written and easy to follow for what could easily be a complicated non-fiction! Just crazy this shit happens in real life 😠
June 21, 2026
A furiously fast paced, and justifiably furious, story about how cynicism, abuse of power and stratospheric levels of corruption have become the key pillars of the system operating under Putin.
Much of the book is focused on the author's crusade to bring justice to one of its victims, his former colleague Sergey Magnitsky. Magnitsky's story in a nutshell is that of a lawyer who uncovers massive theft of Russian taxpayer money, but instead of being given a state award for services to the country, is arrested, thrown into jail in horrific conditions, denied crucial medical care, is beaten up and eventually dies from all the abuses. The state then prosecutes the lawyer, after his death in their own custody (!), for stealing the money himself (!).
As so often with Russia, you couldn't have made it up if you tried.
Much of the book is focused on the author's crusade to bring justice to one of its victims, his former colleague Sergey Magnitsky. Magnitsky's story in a nutshell is that of a lawyer who uncovers massive theft of Russian taxpayer money, but instead of being given a state award for services to the country, is arrested, thrown into jail in horrific conditions, denied crucial medical care, is beaten up and eventually dies from all the abuses. The state then prosecutes the lawyer, after his death in their own custody (!), for stealing the money himself (!).
As so often with Russia, you couldn't have made it up if you tried.
July 2, 2026
Rule of Lies:
My Wild Ride Through Chaos, Corruption, and Murder in Putin’s Russia
By Jamison R. Firestone (2026)
Bruce W. Bean
Dedicated to Terry Duncan, Sergei Magnitsky, and Alexei Navalny.
The book’s copyright includes an express prohibition on the use of AI technologies to train generative AI. The first such usage I have noted.
Background and Early Life
Jamison Firestone was born into wealth in Beverly Hills, but his father was both erratic and corrupt. In 1971, the family relocated from Beverly Hills to New York City, where his father continued his criminal activities, including operating what was euphemistically described as a “private gentleman’s club.” His father was ultimately convicted of tax evasion in 1983.
Firestone attended Hackley School in Westchester County, where he grew close to the headmaster, Mr. Barr. He describes himself as a poor student. In one telling early episode, facing failure in his Russian final exam, he approached his teacher and offered to pay for tutoring. The teacher quoted him ten sessions at $25 each; Firestone paid the full $250. The teacher pocketed the money and told him to get out. He passed.
Tulane, Law School, and the Journey to Moscow
After Hackley, Firestone enrolled at Tulane University, where he met Terry Duncan, who would become his law partner and close friend. Duncan’s father was a senior IRS special agent in the criminal tax division and was perhaps aware that Firestone’s father had been convicted of tax evasion.
Firestone graduated from Tulane in 1988 and entered Tulane law school. While in law school he met Robert, then a freshman undergraduate, who became his boyfriend and, twenty-eight years later, his husband. Firestone graduated from law school in 1991. Having already learned some Russian, he departed for Moscow one week after sitting for the New York bar exam.
He was inspired to go to Russia by Esther Dyson’s descriptions of the early post-Soviet period. Firestone noted, “I was in a country where they had nothing and needed everything. I had seen the future the previous week in the USA. I knew what would work in Russia. Everything would work.” Many other expats in Russia in the 1990’s, including me, came to this same conclusion. Within days of Firestone’s arrival in Moscow he witnessed the August 1991 failed KGB coup against Gorbachev.
Building Firestone Duncan
Over Christmas of 1992, Firestone called Terry Duncan and offered him the opportunity to go from recent law school graduate to law firm partner in his Moscow law firm. Firestone Duncan helped foreign clients start businesses in Russia by assisting with difficult to obtain multi-entry visas into Russia and registering new companies.
Firestone also brought his father to Moscow, who selected his own krysha (literally “roof,” meaning Russian Mafia protection) and jumped into Moscow’s used-car trade. In a short time his father had to flee the Mafia and return to the United States. Firestone’s own problems with lawless Russia began with a Russian partner, Konstantine Ponomarev, who would eventually become a multi-millionaire by stealing ever-larger sums from his employers, including $650,000 from Firestone Duncan.
The firm’s darkest early chapter was the assassination of 26-year-old Terry Duncan at the Ostankino television tower during Yeltsin’s 1993 attack on the Communist-controlled legislature. Firestone claims Yeltsin had received a mandate from his 1993 constitutional referendum which followed Yeltsin’s victory over the legislature, a claim that is, at minimum, questionable, but not at all central to his story.
Putin’s Early History
Firestone writes: “Much to my surprise, Putin seemed pretty good for business at first.” Firestone joined the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and had the opportunity to meet and speak with Don Evans, G.W. Bush’s Secretary of Commerce. Having lived in Russia from 1995 to 2003, I completely agree with Firestone’s verdict on Putin’s early presidency. As Firestone noted, “For the first three years of Putin’s presidency, it looked as if Putin might actually make Russia law-abiding.” This ended by late 2003 with Khodorkovsky’s arrest and the beginning of the endless Yukos affair litigation, which continues in 2026. Firestone concludes that the Yukos Affair was confirmation that “Putin’s dictatorship of the law might be incompatible with the law itself.”
Sergei Magnitsky, Bill Browder, and the Hermitage Affair
Firestone introduces Sergei Magnitsky, describing him as a child prodigy who became the head of the accounting, audit, and tax department at Firestone Duncan. The firm’s representation of Bill Browder’s Hermitage Capital, Russia’s largest outside investor, began in 1996. After a decade of successful investing and considerable activist shareholder litigation by Hermitage against corrupt Russian businesses, which made him no friends in Russia, in November 2005, Browder was denied re-entry to Russia. Hermitage Capital subsequently liquidated its Russian investments, paid over $400 million in Russian taxes and withdrew its capital from Russia. Despite this exit, in June 2007, both Hermitage and Firestone Duncan were raided on the same day by Russia’s so-called tax police.
The mechanics of how certain Russian tax officials engineered a fraudulent $231 million tax refund becomes the central thread running through the remainder of the book. The role of Department K of the FSB is examined in detail. In November 2008, with Browder and Firestone safely in London, Sergei Magnitsky was arrested as part of the attack on Hermitage and Firestone Duncan. Others from Firestone Duncan had also left Moscow for London, but Sergei Magnitsky had decided to remain. As the world now knows, at the end of 2009 Sergei Magnitsky died in custody, having been beaten and denied treatment for serious internal injuries.
Aftermath: The Magnitsky Act and the Long Arm of Corruption
Browder and Firestone worked incessantly to keep the Magnitsky tragedy in the public eye globally. They produced compelling YouTube videos and Browder wrote Red Notice and Freezing Order describing how the Russian tax officials managed to steal $231 million from the Russian state. Browder and Firestone worked ceaselessly to ensure sanctions were applied to corrupt Russian officials and that the Magnitsky Act was enacted, first in the U.S. and then elsewhere. Firestone notes his disappointment with the Obama State Department, which was “not interested in punishing corrupt Russian officials,” but was instead “hell-bent on resetting relations,” which “pretty much meant overlooking things like corruption and murder.” He details the crimes and killings of numerous Russian government officials both in Russia and in the UK.
Despite Russian assassinations in the United Kingdom, Firestone writes that “the UK was awash with Russian money and courting Russian investment.” He lays blame on the David Cameron government for attempting to improve relations with Putin’s Russia by ignoring murder and corruption.
Konstantine Ponomarev, who had stolen $650,000 from Firestone Duncan years earlier, later became a billionaire through fraud, including an unlikely scheme against IKEA. Under the terms of a capacity-based electricity agreement, IKEA was required to pay for electricity whether it consumed it or not, based on the capacity of generators Konstantine continued to deliver to the site. The scheme ultimately required IKEA to pay Konstantine almost one billion dollars.
No one should be surprised that in 2013, Browder and the long-deceased Magnitsky were tried in absentia in Russia (and of course, convicted) on “money-laundering” charges. The book also discloses the remarkable, disturbing tale of John Moscow’s journey from highly successful prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (where he had prosecuted Firestone’s father) to attorney for Hermitage and Bill Browder and finally to mouthpiece for the Russian government in its pursuit of Hermitage. Firestone shows that John Moscow was hired by Natalia Veselnitskaya, the glamorous Russian attorney who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton and met Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower prior to the 2016 election. Firestone details obstruction to the subsequent Global Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Congress posed by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who was later labeled by Politico as “Putin’s favorite Congressman.” In April 2019, Firestone encountered John Moscow at a conference and said: “Your clients turned out to be agents working for the Russians.” Moscow’s response: “Fuck you, Jamison.”
Conclusion: Putin and the Rule of Lies
Firestone offers his final character assessment of Putin: “Deep down, he’s a product of both Russian imperialism and the KGB. He believes his mission is to restore what the Soviet Union lost.” Firestone does not discuss how or why Putin’s policies changed, given his earlier conclusion that “For the first three years of Putin’s presidency, it looked as if Putin might actually make Russia law-abiding.” This question must someday be addressed.
One of the most compelling sections of the book is the Afterword, in which Firestone details what became of the major players: his father, the tax officials who stole $231 million, Konstantine, and many others. There are also useful links to press coverage concerning John Moscow, Terry Duncan, and those implicated in the Magnitsky murder. Not all of those responsible got what they deserved; but some did.
Rule of Lies is a valuable first-person account of three decades inside Putin’s Russia, written by someone who was present for the KGB coup against Gorbachev, the 1998 ruble collapse, the Yukos affair, the colossal persecution of Hermitage, the Magnitsky tragedy, and the slow unmasking of a kleptocratic dictatorship. Rule of Lies deserves a wide readership.
My Wild Ride Through Chaos, Corruption, and Murder in Putin’s Russia
By Jamison R. Firestone (2026)
Bruce W. Bean
Dedicated to Terry Duncan, Sergei Magnitsky, and Alexei Navalny.
The book’s copyright includes an express prohibition on the use of AI technologies to train generative AI. The first such usage I have noted.
Background and Early Life
Jamison Firestone was born into wealth in Beverly Hills, but his father was both erratic and corrupt. In 1971, the family relocated from Beverly Hills to New York City, where his father continued his criminal activities, including operating what was euphemistically described as a “private gentleman’s club.” His father was ultimately convicted of tax evasion in 1983.
Firestone attended Hackley School in Westchester County, where he grew close to the headmaster, Mr. Barr. He describes himself as a poor student. In one telling early episode, facing failure in his Russian final exam, he approached his teacher and offered to pay for tutoring. The teacher quoted him ten sessions at $25 each; Firestone paid the full $250. The teacher pocketed the money and told him to get out. He passed.
Tulane, Law School, and the Journey to Moscow
After Hackley, Firestone enrolled at Tulane University, where he met Terry Duncan, who would become his law partner and close friend. Duncan’s father was a senior IRS special agent in the criminal tax division and was perhaps aware that Firestone’s father had been convicted of tax evasion.
Firestone graduated from Tulane in 1988 and entered Tulane law school. While in law school he met Robert, then a freshman undergraduate, who became his boyfriend and, twenty-eight years later, his husband. Firestone graduated from law school in 1991. Having already learned some Russian, he departed for Moscow one week after sitting for the New York bar exam.
He was inspired to go to Russia by Esther Dyson’s descriptions of the early post-Soviet period. Firestone noted, “I was in a country where they had nothing and needed everything. I had seen the future the previous week in the USA. I knew what would work in Russia. Everything would work.” Many other expats in Russia in the 1990’s, including me, came to this same conclusion. Within days of Firestone’s arrival in Moscow he witnessed the August 1991 failed KGB coup against Gorbachev.
Building Firestone Duncan
Over Christmas of 1992, Firestone called Terry Duncan and offered him the opportunity to go from recent law school graduate to law firm partner in his Moscow law firm. Firestone Duncan helped foreign clients start businesses in Russia by assisting with difficult to obtain multi-entry visas into Russia and registering new companies.
Firestone also brought his father to Moscow, who selected his own krysha (literally “roof,” meaning Russian Mafia protection) and jumped into Moscow’s used-car trade. In a short time his father had to flee the Mafia and return to the United States. Firestone’s own problems with lawless Russia began with a Russian partner, Konstantine Ponomarev, who would eventually become a multi-millionaire by stealing ever-larger sums from his employers, including $650,000 from Firestone Duncan.
The firm’s darkest early chapter was the assassination of 26-year-old Terry Duncan at the Ostankino television tower during Yeltsin’s 1993 attack on the Communist-controlled legislature. Firestone claims Yeltsin had received a mandate from his 1993 constitutional referendum which followed Yeltsin’s victory over the legislature, a claim that is, at minimum, questionable, but not at all central to his story.
Putin’s Early History
Firestone writes: “Much to my surprise, Putin seemed pretty good for business at first.” Firestone joined the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and had the opportunity to meet and speak with Don Evans, G.W. Bush’s Secretary of Commerce. Having lived in Russia from 1995 to 2003, I completely agree with Firestone’s verdict on Putin’s early presidency. As Firestone noted, “For the first three years of Putin’s presidency, it looked as if Putin might actually make Russia law-abiding.” This ended by late 2003 with Khodorkovsky’s arrest and the beginning of the endless Yukos affair litigation, which continues in 2026. Firestone concludes that the Yukos Affair was confirmation that “Putin’s dictatorship of the law might be incompatible with the law itself.”
Sergei Magnitsky, Bill Browder, and the Hermitage Affair
Firestone introduces Sergei Magnitsky, describing him as a child prodigy who became the head of the accounting, audit, and tax department at Firestone Duncan. The firm’s representation of Bill Browder’s Hermitage Capital, Russia’s largest outside investor, began in 1996. After a decade of successful investing and considerable activist shareholder litigation by Hermitage against corrupt Russian businesses, which made him no friends in Russia, in November 2005, Browder was denied re-entry to Russia. Hermitage Capital subsequently liquidated its Russian investments, paid over $400 million in Russian taxes and withdrew its capital from Russia. Despite this exit, in June 2007, both Hermitage and Firestone Duncan were raided on the same day by Russia’s so-called tax police.
The mechanics of how certain Russian tax officials engineered a fraudulent $231 million tax refund becomes the central thread running through the remainder of the book. The role of Department K of the FSB is examined in detail. In November 2008, with Browder and Firestone safely in London, Sergei Magnitsky was arrested as part of the attack on Hermitage and Firestone Duncan. Others from Firestone Duncan had also left Moscow for London, but Sergei Magnitsky had decided to remain. As the world now knows, at the end of 2009 Sergei Magnitsky died in custody, having been beaten and denied treatment for serious internal injuries.
Aftermath: The Magnitsky Act and the Long Arm of Corruption
Browder and Firestone worked incessantly to keep the Magnitsky tragedy in the public eye globally. They produced compelling YouTube videos and Browder wrote Red Notice and Freezing Order describing how the Russian tax officials managed to steal $231 million from the Russian state. Browder and Firestone worked ceaselessly to ensure sanctions were applied to corrupt Russian officials and that the Magnitsky Act was enacted, first in the U.S. and then elsewhere. Firestone notes his disappointment with the Obama State Department, which was “not interested in punishing corrupt Russian officials,” but was instead “hell-bent on resetting relations,” which “pretty much meant overlooking things like corruption and murder.” He details the crimes and killings of numerous Russian government officials both in Russia and in the UK.
Despite Russian assassinations in the United Kingdom, Firestone writes that “the UK was awash with Russian money and courting Russian investment.” He lays blame on the David Cameron government for attempting to improve relations with Putin’s Russia by ignoring murder and corruption.
Konstantine Ponomarev, who had stolen $650,000 from Firestone Duncan years earlier, later became a billionaire through fraud, including an unlikely scheme against IKEA. Under the terms of a capacity-based electricity agreement, IKEA was required to pay for electricity whether it consumed it or not, based on the capacity of generators Konstantine continued to deliver to the site. The scheme ultimately required IKEA to pay Konstantine almost one billion dollars.
No one should be surprised that in 2013, Browder and the long-deceased Magnitsky were tried in absentia in Russia (and of course, convicted) on “money-laundering” charges. The book also discloses the remarkable, disturbing tale of John Moscow’s journey from highly successful prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (where he had prosecuted Firestone’s father) to attorney for Hermitage and Bill Browder and finally to mouthpiece for the Russian government in its pursuit of Hermitage. Firestone shows that John Moscow was hired by Natalia Veselnitskaya, the glamorous Russian attorney who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton and met Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower prior to the 2016 election. Firestone details obstruction to the subsequent Global Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Congress posed by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who was later labeled by Politico as “Putin’s favorite Congressman.” In April 2019, Firestone encountered John Moscow at a conference and said: “Your clients turned out to be agents working for the Russians.” Moscow’s response: “Fuck you, Jamison.”
Conclusion: Putin and the Rule of Lies
Firestone offers his final character assessment of Putin: “Deep down, he’s a product of both Russian imperialism and the KGB. He believes his mission is to restore what the Soviet Union lost.” Firestone does not discuss how or why Putin’s policies changed, given his earlier conclusion that “For the first three years of Putin’s presidency, it looked as if Putin might actually make Russia law-abiding.” This question must someday be addressed.
One of the most compelling sections of the book is the Afterword, in which Firestone details what became of the major players: his father, the tax officials who stole $231 million, Konstantine, and many others. There are also useful links to press coverage concerning John Moscow, Terry Duncan, and those implicated in the Magnitsky murder. Not all of those responsible got what they deserved; but some did.
Rule of Lies is a valuable first-person account of three decades inside Putin’s Russia, written by someone who was present for the KGB coup against Gorbachev, the 1998 ruble collapse, the Yukos affair, the colossal persecution of Hermitage, the Magnitsky tragedy, and the slow unmasking of a kleptocratic dictatorship. Rule of Lies deserves a wide readership.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I knew most of the story, not all of the story, nor how Jamison, the author, came from Russia in one piece.
Reading the book, you have one heck of a thrill ride and will also learn a great deal of what could have been that has been sacrificed to serve a very select few.
It was hard to put down and I can't wait for part II
Reading the book, you have one heck of a thrill ride and will also learn a great deal of what could have been that has been sacrificed to serve a very select few.
It was hard to put down and I can't wait for part II
Did Not Finish
June 29, 2026A lot of major perversions to skim through with regards to his dad. Completely done reading when author mentions his marriage to another man.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews