London Falling

Patrick Radden Keefe’s book, London Falling, is the kind of true-crime story that feels almost too strange to be real.

In November 2019, 19-year-old Zac Brettler jumped from a fifth-floor balcony of a luxury riverside apartment in London and died in the Thames. His parents thought they knew their son. But after his death, they discovered Zac had been living a double life. He had reinvented himself the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, and had gotten tangled up with feared gangsters and other shadowy figures in London’s criminal underworld.

Keefe exposes how the police investigation was incomplete. The family wanted answers and weren't getting them. Keefe followed the money, the lies, and the grief with meticulous reporting and propulsive storytelling. The book reads like a mystery, and teaches us how little we sometimes know about the people we love. The result is gripping, sad, and hard to put down.

Keefe never exploits the family’s pain; in fact, the family wanted this book written to help them get answers. He treats their search for truth with respect while exposing the rot beneath the city’s polished surface. If you like investigative nonfiction that reads like a thriller but stays grounded in real human cost, I recommend this book to you.