Marc Ruskin

Marc Ruskin is the author of The Pretender, My Life Undercover for the FBI, released June 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press. A memoir and exposé of the inner workings of the FBI, The Pretender has received extensive domestic and international media attention. Marc is a retired FBI Special Agent with 20 years’ experience in Undercover Operations. He successfully infiltrated a New York Mafia crime family, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian heroin organization, a Wall Street trading exchange, right-wing terrorist groups, and worked on espionage cases. Though these cases and many others received much media coverage, neither Marc’s name nor any of his dozen aliases could ever be mentioned. He has been awarded five Commendations from the Director of the FBI for his work. A native French and Spanish speaker, Marc has worked at US Embassies in Paris, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Asunción, where he was given a Letter of Recognition from the Minister of the Interior for the rescue of a kidnapped former Miss Paraguay, Mariangela Martinez. As an FBI certified police instructor, Marc has lectured at universities and law enforcement academies. Since his retirement from the FBI in 2012, he has divided his time between a law practice in New York and extended sojourns in Liaoning Province, China, where he writes and studies Mandarin. Marc’s path to the FBI included degrees from Vassar College and Cardozo Law School (cum laude), clerking for Federal Judge H. Curtis Meanor, two years in Washington on the staff of U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and four years as an Assistant District Attorney with the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office.