London Falling

"The truth is, everybody lies," observes New Yorker staff writer and National Book Critics Circle award winner Keefe (Say Nothing) in this gripping investigation into a young man's mysterious death in 2019 London. Surveillance footage shows Zac Brettler, 19, jumping from a fourth-story apartment balcony into the Thames, apparently fleeing for his life. The man living in the apartment, a middle-aged gangland enforcer named Verinder Sharma, died a year later, stymieing Scotland Yard's criminal investigation. The only other witness, a businessman named Akbar Shamji, was caught lying to the police and offered no help beyond an initial bombshell revelation, disclosed to Zac's grieving parents shortly after his death, that Zac had for some reason fooled him and Verinder into thinking he was the son of a Russian oligarch. In between piecing together the facts, Keefe zooms out, vividly portraying the morass of the modern London underworld, a "twenty-four-hour laundromat for dirty money... full of crooks with pretensions to legitimacy and businessmen who seem a little crooked." Keefe's approach is profoundly humane, particularly in his intimate interviews with Zac's parents, Matthew and Rachelle, who convey a deep desire to understand their late son. Despite the murky material, Keefe arrives at an artful and clarifying explanation. It's a remarkable new turn for the celebrated author.