London Falling
The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller
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- €12.99
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES No.1 BESTSELLER
'A defining book of our time' - The Times
'The master of the non-fiction narrative' - The Sunday Times
'A masterpiece' - The Observer
'Compulsive' - The Guardian
'Breathtaking' - Jon Ronson
'Completely engrossing' - Louis Theroux
'Phenomenal' - Emily Maitlis
'More addictive than any box set' - Sathnam Sanghera
From the Baillie Gifford Prize-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing comes a riveting story of wealth, violence and deceit at the heart of a glittering city.
In 2019, a London teenager, Zac Brettler, fell to his death from a luxury apartment building on the banks of the Thames. On a desperate quest to understand how their son had died, his grieving parents made a terrible discovery: Zac had been leading a fantasy life, posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.
Patrick Radden Keefe follows Zac’s parents on a dark journey to find out what brought him to the balcony that night – and how a teenager’s life of make-believe drew him into the city’s terrifying underworld.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"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.
