Le Fils de l'oligarque

by Patrick Radden Keefe, Anne-Sylvie Homassel (Translator)

Après Ne dis rien, L'Empire de la douleur et Snakehead, une nouvelle enquête fascinante sur la mort mystérieuse d'un prétendu fils d'oligarque russe à Londres.
Quand le meilleur journaliste actuel, Patrick Radden Keefe, nous fait découvrir les recoins les plus sombres de Londres, où le clinquant côtoie le sordide.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Audiobook, Crime, History, Mystery, Book Club

400 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2026

About the author

Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of The Snakehead and Chatter. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Slate, New York, and The New York Review of Books. He received the 2014 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, for his story "A Loaded Gun," was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2015 and 2016, and is also the recipient of an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellowship at the New America Foundation and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

i would read patrick radden keefe write about laundry.

https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

this book is so well-researched as to be daunting. when i first started it, i caught myself reading paragraphs over again, not out of any conscious reason or fact i'd missed but because each sentence is so rich in detail that i felt there's no way i got everything on the first read.

in spite of that, it grows consuming. i hate true crime, but this is such an emotional telling of a human story that it gripped me completely and guiltlessly. asides can go on a bit long or redundantly, but even those confusing or dry passages sometimes led to the reward of a shocking coincidence or conclusion.

i will now be reading patrick radden keefe's works.

full stop.

bottom line: whoa.

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't start London Falling, or any of Patrick Radden Keefe's books, for that matter, if you want to get anything else done. You will be handcuffed to the book, in thrall with Zac Brettler's story, until you turn the final page.

If Radden Keefe can make the Troubles both explicable and relatively easy to follow for a history novice like me, he can explain most anything. He structures his books in such a way that makes them compulsively readable, leaving the major revelations at the end so you finish the story with mouth agape.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobody does nonfiction like Patrick Radden Keefe. London Falling is both a meticulously-researched descent into London's billionaire-fueled criminal underworld, and a deeply intimate family portrait of love and loss across generations. It's all handled with Keefe's usual skill and care, and yet another work of his that explores the hunt for justice in very unjust times.

Another book that I will be recommending to absolutely everyone I know (sorry in advance, absolutely everyone I know).

[Joules · Rating 3 out of 5]

Earlier this year, I read Raden Keefe's Say Nothing, which quickly became one of my favourite history books. This is to say - I went into his newest release with almost as much zeal as I had approaching David Grann's The Wager. However, London Falling didn't quite live up to my expectations. It started off very strong, sure, and I found the recent history of London and it's conversion onto a financial hub to be quite interesting (especially as one of the city's current residents). It seemed that Keefe was setting up his book in the same way he had with Say Nothing - using personal and social stories to gesture at larger societal nuance.

Yet, if that's what he was trying to do with London Falling, the set up didn't exactly pay off. He gestured at conspicuous consumption, social media, and mistruths and how their echoes cause harm across our relationships with one another (and unwittingly mutilate our understanding of the world), but I don't think he went far enough in truly connecting the story to these larger themes, and the book started to majorly taper off towards the end. In addition, I don't think that the story of Zach Brettler, while important, was the right way to gesture towards these larger ideas (in the way, say, the murder of Jean McConville was to the themes of Say Nothing).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I lacked a clear WHY...why was this book written? Why am I reading it? I'm not sure what to take from it apart from entertainment and a few interesting anecdotes. And I don't think that's what Keefe, or the Brettlers for that matter, would want. I just couldn't help but be a bit disappointed by this one.

[Jane Scarfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is an interesting story here, certainly, but it is buried under a meandering process of absurdly long diversions into very tangential topics and side stories which, rather than painting a bigger picture of the incident at heart or bringing a big conspiracy together, mostly serve as dead end titbits the author found interesting, and you must know how smart Mr. Radden Keefe is.

These issues are coupled with an almost sycophantic affection for the poor parents of the victim, and really he never once asks the question of what those parents were doing when their son was staying overnight in the hotel bed of a criminally connected millionaire and boasting that he was making hundreds of thousands of pounds in dodgy trading. The book was written because of Radden Keefe's affection and relationship with Zac's parents and, despite portraying himself as a kind of investigative journalist uncovering lesser spoken about truths, he also demands the reader take his work as a narrative from the point of view of those parents.

Speaking of sharing beds, Radden Keefe is quite interested in a possible "gay" angle to this story, possibly because he finds it makes his story more "complex" but the fact that a consensual sexual relationship between a 17 year old boy and a much older, wealthier man isn't possible, doesn't particularly occur to him.

As a side note, why does Radden Keefe never mention when a character is white? We're always told when a character is Black or Asian (and when women or young girls are beautiful and have big eyes), but he never feels the need to mention when a person is White. Odd that.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In the early hours of November 29, 2019, a surveillance camera on MI6 headquarters registered movement on the fifth floor of the taller tower at Riverwalk, just across the water. The night was cold. The Thames was running high, and the reflected illumination of the lamps lining Vauxhall Bridge danced on the surface of the water. Riverwalk was almost entirely dark, but one apartment blazed with light: unit 504. At 2:23 a.m., the MI6 camera captured a dark figure walking out of the apartment and onto the narrow balcony overlooking the Thames. It was a slender silhouette against the brightly lit windows: a young man. He made his way to one corner of the balcony and seemed to peer over the ledge, before crossing to the other corner and briefly pausing there. Then, returning to the center of the balcony, he jumped…”
- Patrick Raden Keefe, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for the Truth

Patrick Raden Keefe is one of the best in the business of narrative nonfiction. His books feel like events to me. Whenever Keefe publishes something, I am going to read it. One of his gifts is to make largescale events feel intimate, and to explore the broad canvas of historical events through the experiences of individuals. For instance, in Say Nothing, Keefe chronicled “the Troubles” of Ireland through the tale of a young mother “disappeared” for being an alleged police informant. In Empire of Pain, he tackled America’s opioid epidemic from the perspective of the Sackler family, who profited from it.

London Falling does not feel quite so ambitious. It is a detective story set against the backdrop of an ambiguous borderland where legitimate business intertwines with a criminal underworld. Though it is exceptionally crafted, it does not have a whole lot more to say. It is a mystery in search not only of answers, but of a larger and elusive meaning.

This is a book that does not really have any apparent flaws. I sailed through it in less than a week, drawn along by the graceful storytelling. Yet it did not satisfy me as fully as Keefe’s others works. Of course, this means that London Falling is still pretty dang good.

***

The animating event of London Falling is the death of Zachary Brettler, who jumped off the balcony of a luxury apartment and into the Thames River on November 29, 2019. Brettler’s plunge was captured by a security camera on MI6 headquarters. Just nineteen years old, Brettler’s body was not discovered until over a week later.

At first glance this appeared to be a clear example of a suicide, and the police did not initially look into matters with a great deal of interest. When his family began asking questions, however, they discovered that Zac had been living a double life, posing as the son of a billionaire Russian oligarch.

While trying on this identity, Zac unknowingly came into contact with some extremely shady and dangerous characters.

***

London Falling is structured as an elevated whodunnit. Keefe begin with a death that looks open-and-shut, an event clearly captured on video. However, as he begins to move back and forth through time, exploring Zac’s upbringing and personality, he scours away initial impressions until a different reality emerges.

It is difficult to say more than this without undercutting Keefe’s literary mechanics. I am a firm believer that nothing that happens to real people deserves a spoiler tag. The tragedies of others were not performed for our amusement. With that said, Keefe works hard to achieve a certain impact with the timing of his reveals, and I will respect that.

***

Though it is hard to talk about Zac’s story without giving away too much, the context in which it occurred is worth noting.

The London that Keefe describes is a fascinating place, a sort of Cayman Islands with worse weather. He tells of Russian billionaires who pilfered the state assets of the former Soviet Union before fleeing with their ill-gotten gains. In London, they found a welcoming home for their capital. More than that, thanks to Britain’s non-domicile laws – only recently abolished – these foreign arrivals could avoid paying any taxes by having a permanent home overseas. Thus, in many ways, London Falling is yet another set-piece in the protracted saga of end-stage capitalism.

Mixed in with these quasi-criminals are a whole bunch of no-doubt criminals, including the infamous Mad Mickey McAvoy. Keefe does his usual impeccable work detailing how these various threads – the Russian billionaires, the London gangsters – created a deadly gravitation pull that drew Zac Brettler into fatal orbit. Reading London Faling reminded me of Guy Ritchie’s early films in the best possible way.

***

Stylistically, London Falling is polished and professional. Keefe clearly did a lot of work, with references to court documents, emails, texts, and numerous interviews. The scope of his research is well documented in the annotated endnotes.

Despite the work that obviously went into this, the presentation is effortless. All the details that Keefe accumulates are used to provide empathetic portraits of Zac, his brother, and especially his mother and father. This material did not reverberate with me in the same way as Keefe’s other offerings. Still his writing still carried me along.

***

When a book is truly working, I find myself spontaneously bringing it up in conversations, like some freelance salesman working without commission. In years past, I recommended Say Nothing and Empire of Pain to dozens of people. I even mailed out a couple copies to those who did not entirely get the point. London Falling did not elicit from me any similarly excited utterances.

Recently I met up with an old friend who also loved Say Nothing. It turned out she had just finished reading London Falling as well. But even though we can talk for hours about almost anything, we did not have much more to say about it. We both liked it. We both had the sense we would not remember it.

***

Unlike in fiction, the strands of real life do not always get tied off. Loose ends abound. In London Falling, Keefe follows many different lines of inquiry. Unfortunately, they do not all arrive at a satisfying conclusion. Keefe presents what amounts to an answer to this puzzle, yet many questions remain that can never be answered.

The uncertainty is not the real issue, though. Instead, it is a lack of thematic resonance. At his best, Keefe delivers chronicles that work on two distinct levels. London Falling works on only one. It is still a very good book, just not a great one.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In November 2019, a surveillance camera at MI6 headquarters along the Thames captures the silhouette of a young man standing on a brightly lit balcony across the river. After a brief hesitation, he jumps. Five hours later, his body is discovered face down on the riverbank.

This story seeks to answer the question: what would lead 19-year-old Zac Brettler toward such an unsettling and tragic fate?

Once identified as Zac Brettler, investigators begin piecing together who he was and what could have driven him to this devastating end. As the story unfolds, shadowy figures, questionable financial dealings, and the young man’s own hidden actions emerge, raising troubling questions about responsibility, manipulation, and truth.

Meticulously researched through police transcripts, emails, letters, and security camera records, Radden Keefe reconstructs the events leading up to that night with remarkable precision. The result reads less like straightforward nonfiction and more like a gripping literary thriller.

What makes the book especially compelling is not just the intrigue surrounding London’s murky financial underworld, but the deep sadness at its center. Zac’s parents, relentless in their pursuit of answers, provide the emotional heartbeat of the story. Their grief and determination continue to resonate even after the story concludes, especially as the reality of Zac’s life — and how little he ultimately possessed — comes into focus.

The book explores a darker side of London: one driven by wealth, secrecy, influence, and dangerous ambition. Readers may find themselves racing through the pages as though reading a suspense novel, while never forgetting that this is a real-life tragedy.

A dark, absorbing, and exceptionally researched true crime story that may leave more questions than answers — but will almost certainly leave readers riveted and unsettled by the hidden financial underbelly it exposes.

[Amy Biggart · Rating 5 out of 5]

goat narrative nonfiction writer

so different from his other books, yet it has all of the classic PRK greatness! This is a smaller and more intimate story, in part because it's told primarily through the eyes of grieving parents trying to get to the bottom of their son's mysterious death. To do so, PRK takes you through the political environment that facilitated post-soviet union era wealth to permeate London — and explains how one wayward teenage boy with dreams of being wealthy and powerful could get swept up into it. He is so excellent at weaving setting and relevant backstory into his character-driven nonfiction, and I think he gets better at this with every book.

What I love most about his nonfiction is the way he sweeps you into the story. You become so captivated by the people at the center of his investigations. He's also earned so much trust from his readers. When he veers off course to places like 1970's Uganda, you know that all of his roads will lead back to the central story he's telling. I just don't think anyone is as gifted as he is at making you care about a person's story, and then layering in context you need to better understand why their story happened the way it did.

I could rave about PRK for a decade and not have talked enough. I genuinely feel so grateful to be living concurrently with him publishing new books. I think he's one of the smartest writers alive.

This one didn't quite punch into the territory of Say Nothing or Empire of Pain, but I think that's just because it's smaller in scope. It's just as technically good and engaging as anything he's written recently. Anyway now that I've read all of PRK's work, I'm adrift. Drop nonfiction recs below, please.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s Road Trip Book Club time again with my husband, and this time we listened to "London Falling" by Patrick Radden Keefe. This riveting work of narrative nonfiction investigates the mysterious 2019 death of nineteen-year-old Zac Brettler, who fell from a fifth-floor balcony into the Thames River near MI6 headquarters in London. Was it an accident, suicide, or something more sinister? Patrick Radden Keefe sets out to answer that question.

Zac’s parents, Matthew Brettler, a financial services executive, and Rachel Gryn Brettler, a journalist, approached Keefe after Scotland Yard and the British justice system seemed to have little interest in pursuing answers. Desperate for clarity, and fully aware that such an investigation would lay bare their family’s private life, they entrusted their story to one of the finest investigative journalists working today.

As only Keefe can, he broadens the lens far beyond one young man’s death. He traces the transformation of London beginning with the financial deregulation of the Thatcher years, which attracted vast sums of foreign wealth and helped turn the city into a haven for international billionaires. He explores the collapse of the Soviet Union and the unprecedented transfer of wealth that created the Russian oligarch class, whose fortunes and families became deeply entwined with London society. Their children were educated at elite boarding schools, creating a world of extraordinary privilege and murky influence. This backdrop becomes essential to understanding Zac’s life and his eventual demise.

At boarding school, Zac reinvented himself. He began claiming to be "Zac Ismailov," the son of a deceased Russian oligarch and heir to a £200 million fortune, supposedly in London seeking investments on behalf of his father's estate. His parents recognized troubling changes in his personality but had no idea how elaborate his double life had become. As the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly astonishing how deeply Zac immersed himself in a world populated by much older and highly questionable figures. Rachel herself candidly admits that, in hindsight, she wished she had asked more questions.

Keefe meticulously reconstructs Zac’s final days, drawing upon extensive interviews, court documents, and testimony from the coroner's inquest. Along the way, he exposes troubling failures and possible corruption within the police and legal systems that left many questions unresolved. Zac himself emerges as a fascinating and tragic figure--a gifted storyteller and manipulator whom Keefe likens to Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. The result is a true-crime investigation that reads with the pace and suspense of a thriller while also serving as a portrait of a troubled young man who became entangled in the shadowy underworld of London's elite.

Both my husband and I were completely engrossed. Patrick Radden Keefe narrates the audiobook himself, and his calm, measured voice perfectly complements the material. His narration adds an extra layer of authenticity to an already compelling story.

Highly recommended. Patrick Radden Keefe has once again demonstrated why he is one of the most trustworthy and talented nonfiction writers working today. Wherever his curiosity leads next, I’ll be eager to follow.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

The hype is real, and I love that Patrick Radden Keefe, much like Ronan Farrow, gets people into investigative journalism by finding a language that is engaging, but never flashy. So yes, this is true crime, but while the genre often bathes in the thrill of sex and violence, thus exploiting the suffering of victims, PRK writes with empathy without losing sight of his strife to get to the bottom of things. "London Falling" is an exploration into the death of 19-year-old upper middle class kid Zac Brettler, who wanted to become a big shot in the world of big money and tried his luck as an imposter: The naive college student, a descendant of holocaust survivors, posed as the son of a Russian oligarch and got entangled with con-man Akbar Shamji and gangster Verinder Sharma. In 2019, Zac jumped off the balcony of Sharma's apartment - was he suicidal or did he attempt to escape by jumping into the Thames?

PRK tries to solve this riddle, which leads him to questions regarding why Shamji and Sharma were never held accountable, the faultiness of the police investigation, the family background and possible motivations of everyone involved, plus what the whole incident says about the city of London and the money that circulates there. He apparently talked to everyone and their mother and the striped hamster of the cousin's neighbor, and I have to admit that when the ex-wife of someone's friend who choreographed "Cats" shows up, I felt like this report has a tendency to go overboard, but it is oh so absorbing, especially as an audio book, and it gains considerable speed towards the end.

Great journalism. I loved Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty even more, and I absolutely need to tackle Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland at some point.

You can now listen to the podcast gang discussing the German translation Der Sohn des Oligarchen: Über die globale Macht der Superreichen und den Niedergang einer Weltstadt here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...

[Maggie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Patrick Radden Keefe is an incredibly talented storyteller and researcher, but I don't think this story was worthy of his considerable talents. It's a story that's rather prosaic when it is fully revealed: a ridiculously inept con perpetrated by a 19-year-old narcissist on two stunningly incompetent and nasty swindlers. As a central character, Zac is extremely unsympathetic, and even when we are told the "fun" stories about him he seems like a malignant fabulist who was bound to get someone hurt or killed eventually. 

My biggest issue is with the heavy-handed influence of the parents on this book. PRK does not make it possible to distance yourself from the parents in this story, who have an obvious wish to assuage their guilt by assigning some greater meaning and mystery to their son's death. But they both come across as emotionally immature, entitled people who don't know how to take responsibility for their part in what happened and move on. In particular, the mother seems like a toxic boy mom who was more concerned with shielding her son from accountability for his actions than she was with connecting with him emotionally. And PRK repeats a lot of their perspective on Zac at face value in a way that is frankly nauseating. 

As for the idea of police misconduct in the case, I find that less than compelling and certainly no "bombshell" that police are uninterested in finding out the truth and providing justice to the victims--that is literally never been their function and the fact that the Brettlers are so surprised by this is stunningly naive. It is not the police's job to fully flesh out their son's universe into a coherent picture. That is probably the parents' job, and they utterly failed to do anything to understand their son when he was alive. The fact that they are still attempting to do so with the help of an author of PRK's stature makes me think they are still delusional.

PRK spends a lot of time describing the emptiness, amorality, and excess of the ultra-wealthy in London. Which I enjoyed. But the distinction he is trying to make between the corrupt ultra-wealthy and the Brettlers never rings true to me. The father is a banker and the mother writes a vanity column about how to spend money on luxury items. They aren't ultra wealthy or dodging taxes in the same way the antagonists are, but they are still hoarding wealth and privilege in a world where 99% of people are struggling to survive. In a world of such pain and suffering, what is the death of one kid who had all the advantages in the world and squandered them?

I hope that PRK will be more selective about what he researches and writes about next. He is truly one of the best nonfiction writers active today and it's disappointing that he has wasted so much time on this story.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had a string of 5-star reads, and I am starting to worry that I am going to lose all credibility, assuming I had any to be lost. But I swear that it is just dumb luck that I have been reading a lot of stellar books, and that every star I award here has been earned.

I have never read a Patrick Raden Keefe book or article that I have not thought was exceptional, and that streak is not broken here. This is the story of the murder? suicide? of Zac Brettler, a 19-year old London boy with the analytical powers and decayed soul of Donald Trump. Zac was raised to believe he was the center of the world, and when he did not get one thing (admission into an elite school) it apparently turned him into a selfish person who always needed to be a person people envied, and as a result a compulsive liar. Zac was obsessed with wealth and position, and in his quest to be incredibly wealthy (he was raised with significant economic privilege, but that was not enough) he created a situation through his deceit and choice of companions in which he was going to die. And when he died, the only question was whether he killed himself before someone else did the job, or whether they did the deed. The story is jaw-dropping, and also very relevant to this historic moment where truth is reviled, obscene wealth has become our golden idol, and all sense of duty to the collective has been crushed. Yes, I was a voyeur here, but not entirely that. This raises meaningful questions and avenues for thought for the reader, and holds Scotland Yard and the economic structure of London up to the light.

The story is told in three pieces. First, we meet Zac and learn something about his story (though some of this is guesswork. The second piece is where we meet the grifters and thugs who caused Zac's death, and boy, is that colorful. Finally, we ride alongside Zac's parents as they try to get answers, and as they are introduced to PRK, they tirelessly work together to tell this story. IT doesn't seem like that structure should work, but it does.

My heart goes out to the Brettlers, and I appreciate their rigor in trying to find Zac's story and to find a way for some good to have come from their heartbreak. This is an extraordinary true crime story. This is how it is done.

[Henk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story of a boy with a hidden life posing as an oligarch son is wild and investigates both what a parent can know about their child and how London is a mecca for dodgy money
London is to the billionaire what the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutan - Boris Johnson

This story of excessive wealth in London corrupting an English boy (who is already very upper middle class with a father working in structured finance and a 2,000 sqft home in Maida Vale and private schools) is so recognisable for anyone who lived in London. It is intensely readable and has so many twist and turns; this would be an epic Netflix documentary.
More thoughts to follow but Radden Keefe had done a phenomenal job here of keeping me on my toes and weaving together interesting observations on modern day life in London.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

London Falling is a unique nonfiction that combines the story of a teenager living a hidden life with the macro vision of how Russian oligarchs came to view London as their own private haven, bringing their criminal world with them. I’m not a fan of true crime, but this deeply researched book reads more like fiction.
Zachary Brettler was 19 years old when he fell from the balcony of a luxury condominium. His parents were well off, but not rich-rich. He ends up at a second tier school where he is introduced to the sons of several oligarchs. He becomes obsessed with the riches of their world, to the point he begins pretending to be an oligarch’s son. What I found fascinating is how this young man was such a confident scammer he conned his way into associating with a group of dangerous criminals. And no one along the way felt the need to check out the veracity of his story.
Keefe provides us the background on those criminals. What is most striking is how often Scotland Yard was willing to turn a blind eye towards a number of suspicious deaths. Keefe opines about the reason for this but there is never proof one way or the other. In fact, those looking for a definite conclusion with things tied up in a neat bow will be disappointed.
And finally, the book takes a look at Zach’s parents and their search for answers. It’s a reminder of how hard it can sometimes be to really know what our children are doing with their lives.
The book was immensely fascinating, if at times somewhat convoluted. It probably makes a much easier read than listen, as I sometimes struggled to keep track of the various names and how they figured in with Zachary. It was like peeling an onion, layer after layer.
The author narrates his own book and does a good job.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read some excellent reviews of this book and am sure that I can't add anything new. This is an amazing book of family tragedy, questionable financial machinations, and the life and death of a very disturbed young man.

Zac Brettler is found in the River Thames below the balcony of a high-end apartment building and the police think it was probably suicide. His parents think differently and demand a further investigation in which the authorities are not particularly interested and rather slap dash. Determined that it is murder, the parents take it up the search for clues which lead them to the uncovering of their son's secret life.

Lots of characters and a fascinating look at some very shady people with whom Zac was involved. This is a tragic story which will keep you involved. Recommended.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patrick Radden Keefe is a so good at narrative nonfiction and investigative journalism. He makes a story about people I don' think I care about into a can't put down book. I loved how he weaved in the history of the families involved to give all the main subjects a greater depth. Plus I love how he found so many coincidences of people and places. If you love his other books, this might pale in comparison because of the smaller scope, but the writing and storytelling are top notch for all my NF lovers out there. And I think this book is just as good as the rest.

[dspageplace · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wild story, but a bit of a slow detailed drag. I was totally unfamiliar with Zac Brettler’s case, and the mix of "Russian oligarch" deceptions and the London underworld is genuinely fascinating. The author is an excellent researcher and journalist.
However, the pacing dragged for me. While the investigative detail is impressive, it felt like it overstayed its welcome in book form. This probably would have worked much better as a fast-paced true crime documentary. 🇬🇧🕵️‍♂️💰

[Louis Muñoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars: WOW. I have been meaning to read one of Patrick Radden Keefe's previous masterworks, "Say Nothing," about the Troubles, for the longest time, but I ended up reading this first. (Spoiler Alert: Loved both books!) This hit hard, touching on so many interesting topics, but always coming back to the tragedy at the center. It's NOT a spoiler to say that this has to do with the apparent suicide of a 19 year old from a luxury building, and the devastating effects of that death on his family. But the book is about so much more, and THAT I also won't spoil for anyone. Suffice it to say, this is not a light story but a powerful one, shared in such a compelling and suspenseful way that I finished this book a lot quicker than I could have ever expected. Strongly recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publishers for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorry, dear reader, this might be my vaguest book review of all time. Blame author Patrick Radden Keefe, who has once again written an amazing story that I don’t want to spoil for anyone. So, my TL;DR version of the review is this: read it.

Oh, you want a whole review? Okay. Well, as per usual, Keefe left me feeling things. Remember how at the end of Empire of Pain, where you wanted to go punch a member of the Sackler family? Oh, and remember how, at the end of Say Nothing, when you were just kind of sad and exhausted, but strangely relieved? Well, London Falling doesn’t evoke those particular feelings. Instead, I felt unmoored and just a little apprehensive about the future. To be clear, all these books are must-reads even if I made them sound like emotional rollercoasters…which they are.

London Falling is about a suspicious death right across from MI6 headquarters in 2019. A young man named Zac is the victim. All indications are he jumped from a balcony. Of course, it can’t be that simple, can it? What follows is two intertwined subjects: true crime and family drama.

The true crime portion of the book is hardly straightforward. For the sake of spoiler avoidance, I will say that London is a prime example of a troubling trend in real estate and the mechanisms of ownership. Sure, real estate related true crime isn’t the top of most lists, but Keefe turns this into a warning bell for societies that are not paying attention to who is living next door. Or, more specifically for this story, who is not living next door. (Yes, that last part seems strange, but you’ll know what I mean when you’re done reading the book.) Oh, and in excellent true crime fashion, trust no one.

The family drama is even more visceral. In fact, as the father of a pre-teen daughter, it might be more accurate to call this a horror story. Zac has secrets. He’s also not the only one. His family wants to know what happened to him, but they realize they might not even know the most basic things about him.

This was a book I had to sit with after I closed it. I was more than satisfied as a reader, but as a person who must live in this world, I was left with more questions than when I started.

(This book was provided as a review copy by Doubleday Books.)

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patrick Radden Keefe is a magnificent journalist, but what makes his non-fiction so addictive are the ways he will take a reader down dozens of riveting and unexpected rabbit holes, and how he will use one small story to tell a larger one. We saw this in "Say Nothing," his account of one Irish woman's disappearance as a way into an exploration of the "troubles" in Northern Ireland. "London Falling" is brilliant in that same way: a young man in London, 19 years old in 2019, seems to have thrown himself over an apartment ledge into the Thames, a suicide caught on a camera at the MI6 building across the river. But it becomes clear there is a lot more to the story, given how this British kid from a fine home with loving parents has convinced some very sketchy criminals that he's the favored son of billionaire Russian oligarchs. And we are off on not merely an exploration of whether this was, in fact, a suicide -- a lot of evidence suggests murder -- but also how London has been transformed in the last generation by international wealth. "London Falling" is the sort of terrific, propulsive book you will pine to return to when you actually have to work.

[Mel || melodrama_musings · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first Patrick Radden Keefe, so I can’t speak to whether we are simply misaligned, but having meandered my way through London Falling over the course of the past month, I can’t help but think that perhaps this expansion of Keefe’s earlier New Yorker article was largely unnecessary. The crux of the story and the mystery surrounding Zach’s death is ultimately not all that complex a web to unravel, and is filled with conjecture - largely due to the death of a key player (Dave Sharma), and the unreliable nature of testimony assembled from a motley crew of pathological grifters. We will never truly know what happened on the night Zach jumped from the balcony, into the depths of the Thames below. I struggled with a lot of Keefe's tangents, particularly those pertaining to the intricacies of the London upper class Jewish hierarchy. I'm still perplexed as to why Keefe chose to delve into the lies and half-truths told by Zach's famous rabbi grandfather, other than to invite the reader to draw a correlation- if not at least an eerie parallel between the two. Yet Keefe never real critically analyzes this familial pattern of falsehood and complacency in the face of inconsistency. The narrative feels so committed to giving voice to Zach's parents, that little interrogation is ultimately done. To my mind, the book ultimately functions best as a form of catharsis for a grieving family, rather than as the propulsive and illuminating work of investigative journalism I had expected.

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Democracy is overrated. All that matters is money and power."

This quote is from Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old who died November 29, 2019. Zac's death raised many issues. Did he jump from a balcony or was he pushed? Suicide or murder? The balcony was located in a posh building, Riverside, that overlooked the Thames in London. His body was found and unidentified for four days.

Zac's parents, Rachelle and Matthew, soon learn that their son was leading a double life and pretended to be the son of a billionaire oligarch. They are soon immersed into details about deception, criminal violence, and betrayal. Zac had convinced some criminal gangsters that his oligarch father had recently died and that Zac would be coming into a large inheritance.

Patrick Radden Keefe was contacted by Rachelle and Matthew Brettler to determine what happened to Zac. I listened to London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth and it is narrated superbly by Keefe. I was captivated from the very beginning.

Other Keefe books that I have read include Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (5 stars), Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (4 stars), and Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (3 stars). Many of his other books are on my TBR.

Highly recommend London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth!

[David Mc · Rating 4 out of 5]

London Falling definitely caught my interest right from the beginning, as Patrick Keefe described the mysterious death of Zach Brettler, a 19-year old Londoner from a privileged background. The story became even more fascinating as Keefe unraveled Zach’s secret life, where he rubbed shoulders with dangerous gangsters who mistakenly believed that he was the fabulously wealthy son of a Russian oligarch. From that point, the book segued into London’s dark criminal underworld, as well as the frustrating inefficiency of Scotland Yard.

Despite enjoying most of the book, I felt that Keefe too often meandered far away from the central point of the story. For instance, the author’s deep dive into the earlier battles and vendettas among London’s various criminal elements seemed to have little relevance to Zach’s strange fall from a luxury tower. Likewise, the pages spent on the experience of Asians in Uganda, as well as detailing the history of Zach’s long-deceased grandfather provided little insight into the story. Even so, regardless of the intermittent rambling passages, this was certainly an interesting read.

[Barbara K · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be successful in writing narrative nonfiction, first and foremost an author has to know how to tell a story. And no one is better at this than Patrick Radden Keefe.

How much detail is necessary to make the story come alive, and not to cause the reader to doze off? How many digressions enhance the story without distracting from the main theme? What’s the best order of presentation - where do you start? And what tone do you use?

Keefe has once again proved his chops tackling all these questions. I’d read his original piece in The New Yorker about these events, and listened to two interviews with him about the book, so I was pretty familiar with the overall story and even some of the digressions.

Still, once I started reading the book, I couldn’t put it down. The bare bones of the story are these: The teenage son of an affluent family in London becomes fascinated by the lifestyles of the ultra-wealthy who have established homes there. He wants to be part of this life, and leveraging his charm and gift with accents, he passes himself off as the son of a Russian oligarch. It all comes to a disastrous end.

In addition to his storytelling skills, Keefe demonstrates his abilities as an investigative journalist in London Falling. For various reasons the story was never made public and never properly investigated by the police. Through his connections with the boy’s family and his persistent pursuit of everyone and anyone who might know something helpful, he reaches what appears to be a satisfactory explanation.

If you haven’t read Patrick Radden Keefe before, this would be a great place to start. And if you are familiar with his writing, rest assured this is another winner.

[Dem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most true crime books ask, “Who did it?” London Falling is more interested in a stranger question: “Who was this person, really?”

Patrick Radden Keefe begins with a death and ends up excavating an entire ecosystem of illusion. A teenager invents a glamorous identity, wealthy men perform versions of themselves, and a city built on money and status becomes a stage where everyone seems to be acting. What fascinated me wasn’t the mystery itself, but the layers of reinvention and self-deception surrounding it.

Keefe has a remarkable ability to turn reporting into narrative without sacrificing nuance. The book reads like a thriller, yet its emotional center is a family’s desperate attempt to understand a son they loved but never fully knew. Some of the detours into history and background occasionally slowed the momentum for me, which is why this lands at four stars rather than five.

Still, few writers can make a story about grief, fraud, privilege, and modern London feel this compelling. Long after the details of the investigation faded, I kept thinking about the book’s larger idea: how easily people can become trapped by the stories they tell others—and themselves.

A haunting, deeply human read that lingers well beyond the final page. This is my third book by this author and I cant wait to see what he produces next.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight onto my books of the year. Brilliantly written. It's non-fiction but it reads very much like fiction in its narrative, storytelling, characterisation and cliff-hangers. At the end of every section I thought I must put this down and do something else, and then PRK would drop something else in that meant I had to read on. Absolutely propulsive and addictive. I know people who have listened to this, read by PRK and they've said it's also excellent, although he mispronounces a lot of the English place names. 😁
In November 2019 19-year-old Zac Brettler jumps to death from a balcony of a swanky London flat into the Thames. From long interviews with the family and others, Patrick Radden Keefe looks into Zac's recent history and how and why he was posing as the son of a rich Russian oligarch. PRK digs into London underbelly, a world of gangsters, organised crime, money laundering and very scary men. There are no conclusions exactly but the writing is excellent and the story gripping.
Highly recommended.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

***SPOILERS HIDDEN***

London Falling investigates the 2019 death, supposedly by suicide, of nineteen-year-old Londoner Zac Brettler. This topic at first appears simplistic for Patrick Radden Keefe, an accomplished investigative journalist whose themes tend to be weightier. As it turns out, though, Brettler’s jump into the River Thames was far from the straightforward incident it looked like on the single public camera that happened to record it. Circumstances surrounding the supposed suicide were highly suspicious, and London Falling painstakingly dissects and scrutinizes the involved timeline and numerous clues.

The tragedy of Zac Brettler started with a momentous decision, one his young self probably didn’t understand was dangerous until it was too late: to fashion a secret life posing as the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch. Starting from Brettler’s birth and concluding a few years after his death, London Falling familiarizes readers with this man and his family, that audacious ruse, and how London's specific personality provided a favorable environment for the ruse. This is a transfixing mystery brimming with the kind of jaw-dropping developments that only nonfiction could accommodate; if London Falling were fictional, readers would widely pan it for its “far-fetched story” and endless “forced twists.”

London Falling feels different from the two stellar Keefe books I’ve read, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland and Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. Although like those two it’s meticulously organized and full of surprises, unlike them, London Falling is specific to one suffering family and offers less historical and social commentary. When Keefe dives into the past and present socio-economics of London, his book moves toward that, but overall it’s not as rich with lessons. It’s still educational, but it’s ultimately committed to Brettler, his family, and the two suspicious men who were last with Brettler, making it a little more like a traditional true-crime read. To clarify, this doesn’t mean London Falling is ever sordid or romanticizes villains. Keefe elicits understanding and sympathy for the victim and his family, and he breathes life into everyone, villains included, with sharp details that make them flesh-and-blood real.

Sometimes, though, the book stumbles in ways Say Nothing and Empire of Pain don’t. Detail is so abundant that London Falling shifts identity, becoming a biography of the father of one person or of the grandfather of another. He describes how Brettler’s parents met and what their home lives were like growing up. For no reason, readers tag along on a heartbreaking trip that Zac Brettler’s grandfather took to his transformed Polish hometown. Worse is the epilogue, which is an endless rambling whirlwind of mostly arbitrary information. London Falling began life as an article Keefe wrote for The New Yorker, and although these extra parts aren’t uninteresting, their inclusion is awkward, revealing the author’s effort to expand the article to book length.

The Brettler case is alarming enough to naturally raise questions about police corruption. London Falling wouldn’t have needed padding, and would be more like his previous essential books, if it had seized upon that larger and thornier topic. Readers feel the Brettler family’s growing frustration with an uninterested police force, but Keefe isn’t curious enough about the root causes of the force’s half-hearted response. He begins digging deeper by adding another intriguing layer, the symbiotic role of Russian oligarchs in London. The author explains how an inflow of these rich and powerful people in the 1990s was a boon to the economy, metamorphosing London from a dirty industrial city to a ritzy, thriving metropolis. But these oligarchs weren’t exactly ethical, aboveboard people. With the metamorphosis came a high number of suspicious deaths year after year. When it came to enforcing the law, the economic influence of the oligarchs encouraged police reluctance, but it’s hard to imagine fear wasn’t also an influence. However, Keefe doesn’t address how dysfunctional police culture factored in. London Falling offers only provocative tidbits, such as a comment from one of Keefe’s interviewees that the Met police aren’t a task force of Sherlock Holmes–like sleuths eager to solve a mystery. They’re more akin to lawyers; building a strong case for court is the priority. So if evidence is weak or scarce, cases go cold. Most police forces probably operate this way, and no force is free of corruption. Police culture deserves a hard look.

Nevertheless, London Falling is superb. Even though the book is generous with detail and story, plenty about the case is unknown for various reasons, not least because the victim is dead. Yet the answers that are missing don’t make the book feel incomplete, maybe because Keefe’s intense research allowed him to bring the people (and London itself) to life without missing pieces. His personal passion and a sense of purpose also shine through: Yes, the author makes a living from writing, but he seems to choose only those topics that are strongly meaningful to him. The travesty of justice in this case colors everything. He put in the exhaustive research, including following up on the many leads that police outrageously (and probably purposely) ignored, because he wants justice for the Brettlers. The Brettlers suffered a horrendous trauma, but attention from a top investigative journalist is lucky, at least. Ideally, London Falling will lead to a rigorous investigation of the Met police and a conviction for those connected to Brettler’s death.

[Avery · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

0.25

This books really makes me quest PRK as a “journalist”.

We have 360 pages of a rather sympathetic (read: biased) account of the suicide (or murder, no one really knows but an alternative theory is presented that makes sense) of rich white malignant narcissist in training who was out maneuvered by advanced level narcissists and psychopaths.

It is interesting and well written. very readable and I finished it in two days. and it weaves a very revealing narrative about how England elites sold the country out to foreign interests which is the real story in my opinion. But it is hard to sit through and have Zac being painted as a clear victim by his parents and PRK. Matthew and Rachelle were outright neglectful. Their teenage son is gallivanting around town pretending to be a rich Russian and they have no idea. All the details of their lives shared do very little to arouse sympathy. Their son was bad person who was eager to surround himself with people who were doing very bad and to be one of the people doing very bad.

This guy “throttled” his mother to the point she was genuinely afraid yet this glossed over by her (and PRK) as if it is not a symptom of a bigger problem. Typical wealthy neglectful white parents who don’t want to hold their demon spawn accountable. Zac was always going to get someone killed. No one can lie like him, recreate with such anger and resentment like him, and admire Putin and thugs like him and have a story that doesn’t end in death. It is just the death happened early in the story and it happened to be the Zac killed himself.

I simply cannot overly look PRK positioning Zac as victim in such a black and white sense. Zac was privileged, entitled, and a pathological liar. For me, the story ends there. The only sympathetic figure is Joe who seemed to be the only one to understand that his brother was truly troubled and now has to live with the shadow of his death.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patrick Radden Keefe writes like no one else, deeply researched reportage that reads novelistically. This would explain his appeal. And this audio version, read in his own voice, is further example of his brilliance with his empathy shining through. Here we have a beloved son who feels the need to create an entirely new personna designed to impress thus getting in way over his head, and following his death his parents' efforts to learn the truth. Along the way the reader learns about London's underworld, also its society as driven by the river, its theatrical history, and shocking revelations about Scotland Yard. Highly recommended.

Addendum: The April 2 New York Times has an article on Radden Keefe that is well worth the time. Gives more insight not only into him as a person, but his relationship with this book and its development in particular.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again Keefe has written an extensively researched nonfiction story that unfolds and unfolds and unfolds as if it's a thriller. There are twists and curves. What at first looks quite simple gets quite complicated.

I had some doubts on this one because I wasn't sure that there was a way to tell the story of this one very young man's apparent suicide in a way that wouldn't feel exploitative. I often feel that way about true crime. But you would be hard pressed to find ways that Keefe exploits the living family left behind. It's clear that Zac's parents trust Keefe deeply and have confided a lot in him. Of course, what Zac's parents want isn't what everyone wants, and Zac isn't here to speak for himself, but then we just get into the typical pitfalls of nonfiction writing that you get in memoir.

I also wasn't sure if this story would be a big enough story, but I was wrong there, too. If anything by the end it's clear that there's still more there, that it's impossible for every question to be answered, and that you could go much farther down.

Keefe is just so good at this, it's so well-constructed as a book. More interesting than a lot of fiction I've read. He is quite good at making you feel like you really understand something and then giving you a surprise that doesn't feel cheap or manipulative.

I hope he writes books forever.