NEW YORK — August 12, 2026 — Heresy Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, today announced the acquisition of MISADVENTURES ON K STREET: My Decade with the Architects of Modern Political Scandal, the highly anticipated second memoir by political strategist and international field operative K. Riva Levinson. Scheduled for publication on February 16, 2027, the hardcover release serves as the unfiltered prequel to Levinson’s critically acclaimed earlier memoir, Choosing the Hero.
According to Heresy Press Director Bernard Schweizer, “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.”
Embedded for a decade with the high-powered Washington D.C. lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, Levinson recounts the firm’s trajectory from its rise in 1985 to its shuttering a decade later. At twenty-four, she found herself the lone woman in the room at an enterprise that functioned as a privatized, rogue Department of State. While her partners pulled strings from their offices overlooking the Potomac, Levinson was on the front lines, navigating real-world danger across the proxy wars of the Reagan era.
Moving between the boardrooms and back channels of Washington, and hostile environments overseas, the narrative discloses, with original archival details, the campaigns the firm orchestrated for controversial international clients. Levinson recounts 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.
Intertwined with these geopolitical stakes are Levinson’s deeply personal stories detailing the pride and shame of her family history, her near-reckless restlessness, fear of abandonment, sexual harassment, love, and motherhood. She illustrates how her ambition and idealism clashed directly with systematic corruption, personal danger, and ultimately, betrayal. Levinson uses the book to bring back to life the friends and colleagues whose stories—and lives—were cut short by the human fallout of high-stakes geopolitics.
Levinson’s career has been described by some as a “Forrest Gump-like” journey, placing herself at the center of historical events, with a knack for making the impossible possible. Others remained convinced she was a spy. After her tenure with the firm, she went on to launch her own strategic advisory and government relations firm, KRL International. Her first book, Choosing the Hero—which chronicles her two decades of work advising Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female president—is being republished for its 10th anniversary this year.
Early Praise for Misadventures on K Street
“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
➡️ MISADVENTURES ON K STREET is available for pre-order now.
About Heresy Press
Heresy Press is an independent publisher dedicated to fresh, unfiltered voices and narratives that challenge established paradigms, conventional histories, and orthodoxies in literature and investigative non-fiction. For more information, visit www.heresypress.com.
Media Contact:
Tony Forde, Publicity Manager, Skyhorse Publishing, [email protected]
