Rift Zone

About the Author

R J Hillhouse has run Cuban rum between East and West Berlin, smuggled jewels from the Soviet Union, and slipped through some of the world’s tightest borders. From Uzbekistan to Romania, she’s been followed, held at gunpoint, and interrogated. Foreign governments have solicited her for recruitment as a spy. (They failed.) The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that “she’s truly like James Bond and Indiana Jones all rolled into one.”

A former professor and Fulbright fellow, she earned her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Michigan. She is fluent in several languages. An expert on international affairs and national security, she has published in major academic journals and has lectured at such diverse institutions as Harvard, the Smithsonian, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

She lives in Hawaii, on the slopes of Mauna Loa volcano. She blogs about the outsourcing of national security at www.TheSpyWhoBilledMe.com.