Heresy Press Acquires K. Riva Levinson’s Memoire on Washington’s Shadow Lobbying

KRL International announced that Heresy Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, has acquired Misadventures on K Street: My Decade with the Architects of Modern Political Scandal, the highly anticipated second memoir by its CEO K. Riva Levinson. Scheduled for publication on February 16, 2027, the release serves as the unfiltered prequel to Levinson’s critically acclaimed earlier memoir, Choosing the Hero.

“I knew I had something special in my hands as soon as I started reading the manuscript for Misadventures on K Street. Riva’s book is uncompromising in its truth‑telling, risk‑taking, and boundary‑pushing. The manuscript grabbed me by the proverbial lapels from start to finish…and the rest is history,” said Heresy Press Director Bernard Schweizer.

In Misadventures on K Street, Levinson recounts her ten‑year immersion with the power‑broker firm Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, from its 1985 emergence to its shuttering a decade later. At age twenty‑four, she was the lone woman in a room filled with male strategists operating as a privatized, rogue Department of State. While her partners pulled strings from offices overlooking the Potomac, Levinson was on the front lines, confronting real‑world dangers across the proxy wars of the Reagan era.

The narrative moves between boardrooms and back‑channels in Washington and hostile overseas environments, exposing with original archival details the campaigns the firm orchestrated for controversial international clients. Levinson details hazardous foreign missions spanning Angola, South Africa, Somalia, Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Nicaragua, and Sri Lanka. The book lays bare the ethical compromises, covert operations, and political theater that fundamentally reshaped United States foreign policy, with lasting international ramifications that persist today. She also honors friends and colleagues whose stories—and lives—were cut short by the human fallout of high‑stakes geopolitics.

“It’s a prequel to Choosing the Hero. It is before there was Ellen and before there was a hero to choose,” Levinson told Bloomberg Government in her first exclusive interview about her forthcoming memoir. “It’s like the origin story, and it’s not only my origin story, but also, I believe, the origin story of lobbying today.”

“Misadventures on K Street is an invaluable look at the mechanics of political power in D.C. during the late Cold War era, told with the candor and integrity that have defined Riva’s career.” — U.S. Senator Chris Coons

“In Misadventures on K Street, Levinson does for the dark art of lobbying what I sought to do for The Wolves of K Street—she exposes the high‑stakes machinery of power with unflinching detail…Riva is the ultimate witness.” — Brody Mullins, Pulitzer Prize‑winning investigative reporter

“A story of grit, the complexity of power, and a life spent proving that loyalty is the most powerful currency in diplomacy.” — Ambassador Linda Thomas‑Greenfield, Former U.S. Representative to the United Nations

“An engaging account of the strange intersection of Washington lobbying, Cold War geopolitics, and the outsized personalities who shaped both…An illuminating and often surprising memoir.” — Jeff Flake, former U.S. Senator and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

“A uniquely thrilling, cinematic journey that follows a woman daring enough to navigate the high‑testosterone world of the 1980s…A crazier‑than‑fiction account of power, risk, and the woman who survived it all.” — Blye Faust, Academy Award‑winning producer of Spotlight

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