St. Martin's Press, the book's US publisher, describes it as "a riveting insider's look at life within the world of Scientology" which tells the story of "David Miscavige's childhood and his path to the head seat of the Church of Scientology told through the eyes of his father."
Ruthless tells of how Ron Miscavige and his family joined Scientology in 1971, living for a while in the UK, before moving back to the US. By the age of 16, his son David had become a confidant of Scientology's founder,
L. Ron Hubbard, and had joined the inner core of the church, the
Sea Org. He took over the leadership of Scientology when Hubbard died in 1986. In 2012, after gaining access to the full Internet via
Kindle, Ron Miscavige discovered new information about the church and subsequently left the Church of Scientology. The
Los Angeles Times reported that he was put under surveillance by the Church, which was said to have paid two private investigators to watch him around the clock for 18 months at a cost of $10,000 a week. The surveillance was said to have been "all because [David] Miscavige feared that his father would divulge too much about the organisation's activities." At one point, the investigators were said to have phoned David Miscavige when they thought his father was having a heart attack and were allegedly told not to intervene: "if it was Ron's time to die, to let him die and not intervene in any way". David Miscavige denied having ordered the surveillance or speaking to one of the investigators. The incident prompted Ron Miscavige to write the book. According to
Tony Ortega, a journalist and writer on Scientology,
Ruthless was originally titled
If He Dies, He Dies in reference to the "heart attack" incident. The book is the second memoir to have been published by one of David Miscavige's relatives, after his niece
Jenna Miscavige Hill published
Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape in 2012. == Reception ==