A quick note of well wishes to the ailing (but recovering) RJ Hillhouse. RJ is a popular author and proprietor of The Spy Who Billed Me. If you're interested in the intersection of espionage and the private sector then you've found your next blog to bookmark. Also...I haven't forgotten that I owe Dr. Hillhouse a review of her most recent book, Outsourced, which she was kind enough to send me a copy of. I'll make good on that, without question. Let me just quickly say, that if you are interested or concerned about the use of private contractors in our military / intelligence apparatus (and you should be), Outsourced, while it will entertain you, is not going to make you feel any better.

-- MDT

Labels: Outsourced, RJ Hillhouse

The Spy Who Billed Me is definitely a blog to watch. Its content sits at the nexus of international politics and the private investigative community. Many investigative firms (although none that I've been affiliated with) have a decidedly geopolitical bent, focusing on security, threat assessment and other issues of significance to corporate and government clients alike. This is the regular beat for RJ Hillhouse, who according to her bio:

...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 and others have pitched her for recruitment as a spy...

She's also a novelist (international thrillers, of course) and Fulbright scholar with a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Michigan, with a particular interest in the investigative industry -- or as she might prefer it --the Rent a Spy industry...

The Spy Who Billed Me....give it a look.

-- MDT

Labels: geopolitics, national security, RJ Hillhouse