Valerie Plame (left) Robert Kerbeck (right)

“Successful spies are great storytellers, and Robert Kerbeck ranks with the best." — Valerie Plame, ex-CIA agent and author of 'Fair Game'

LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, August 5, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Former CIA agent Valerie Plame, author of the bestselling book, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, praises Robert Kerbeck’s forthcoming memoir about his career as a corporate spy, RUSE: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. “I loved RUSE! What a crazy story, and believe me, I know crazy,” says Plame, who was outed as a spy by operatives in the George W. Bush administration to get back at her husband in 2003. A movie version of Plame’s book starred Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. “Successful spies are great storytellers,” says Plame, “and Robert Kerbeck ranks up there with the best of them." As a result of Plame’s accolades, Steerforth Press and Penguin Random House have moved up the release date for RUSE to February 1, 2022, with pre-orders available now.

RUSE: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street

Robert Kerbeck makes his money—his real money—by lying on the phone, tricking people inside multibillion-dollar corporations into telling him things they definitely should not. He's become one of the world’s greatest practitioners of a unique, shadowy talent called THE RUSE.

Robert didn’t grow up wanting to be a spy, he just wanted out of the family car business. To his father’s annoyance, he found his escape in acting. But to support himself he needed a survival job. And before he knew it, while his pals were waiting tables, he was beginning his apprenticeship as a corporate spy.

Of course, the ruse job was only supposed to be temporary. He was interacting with Hollywood luminaries on a regular basis: drinking with Paul Newman, taking J.Lo to a Dodgers game, touring E.R. sets with George Clooney, peeing next to Al Pacino. Kevin Spacey hit on him and Yoko Ono hung up on him. He even worked with O.J. Simpson the week before he became America’s most notorious double murderer.

His once promising acting career trailed off as he burrowed deeper and deeper into the world of corporate espionage, to the point where investigators once mistook him for the world’s most infamous hacker. His income jumped from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year. Until the inevitable crash…

Ruse explores the lies he told, the celebrities he screwed (and the ones who screwed him), the cons he ran, and the millions he made—and lost—along the way. Kerbeck has never revealed his hand, until now.

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Robert Kerbeck is the founder of the Malibu Writers Circle and a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His first-person account of the Woolsey Fire was read by over a million people as an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times. Based on that essay, his debut book, Malibu Burning: The Real Story Behind LA's Most Devastating Wildfire, won the 2020 IPPY Award as the Silver Medalist in Creative Nonfiction, the Readers’ Favorite Award as the Silver Medalist in Nonfiction Drama and the Best of LA award. Malibu Burning was also a Finalist for Foreword Book of the Year and the National Indie Excellence Awards.

Robert's essays and short stories have been featured in numerous magazines and literary journals, including Narratively, Cimarron Review, Los Angeles Magazine, Shondaland, and The Normal School. One of his stories was adapted into the award-winning film, Reconnected, which has appeared at film festivals worldwide. A lifetime member of The Actors Studio, Robert has worked extensively in theater, film, and television, appearing in lead roles in major shows and earning several awards. His forthcoming memoir, RUSE: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street (Steerforth Press/Penguin Random House February 1, 2022), is a thrilling look into his career as a corporate spy. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Robert resides in Malibu. Learn more about him and his work at www.RobertKerbeck.com.

Aurora DeRose
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