Book Signing: Beverly Hills Spy by Ronald Drabkin

On Tuesday, February 13, Diesel, A Bookstore welcomes West LA native, historian and author Ron Drabkin to the store to discuss and sign Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor.

Free seating is limited. To reserve a seat, please purchase one copy of the book by clicking here.

In the meantime, Drabkin will offer the Conservancy’s blog and e-news readers an exclusive article adapted from a chapter in the book. Keep an eye out on Thursday, January 18th for a tale of spying here in Santa Monica’s on the city’s own Douglas Aircraft by British WWI hero turned spy, Frederick Rutland.

About Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor: In the spirit of Ben Macintyre’s greatest spy nonfiction, the truly unbelievable and untold story of Frederick Rutland—a debonair British WWI hero, flying ace, fixture of Los Angeles society, and friend of Golden Age Hollywood stars—who flipped to become a spy for Japan in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Plied with riches and given a salary ten times the highest-paid admiral, shuttled between Los Angeles and Tokyo where he lived in large mansions in both Beverly Hills and Yokohama, and insinuating himself into both LA high society and Japan’s high command, Rutland would go on to contribute to the Japanese navy with both strategic and technical intelligence. This included scouting trips to Pearl Harbor, investigations of military preparedness, and aircraft technology. All this while living a double life, frequenting private California clubs and hosting lavish affairs for Hollywood stars and military dignitaries in his mansion on the Los Angeles Bird Streets.

Ronald Drabkin is the author of Beverly Hills Spy and peer-reviewed articles on Japanese espionage. His obsession with espionage history started when he was a student at Brentwood Elementary just down the street from Diesel. He vaguely understood that his father had been working for the US military in counterintelligence. His voyage of discovery into previously classified documents on three continents unearthed a true story of espionage that happened  primarily in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Hollywood. His career prior to writing was at early stage startups in the US, where he was an early adopter of Google and Facebook advertising. He currently lives in Tokyo.

Click here to reserve your seat!