London Falling
A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City, and a Family’s Search for Truth
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 14 Apr 2026
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing - a stunning story of corruption and tragedy in one of the world's great cities: London.
"A new book by Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you'll be turning pages for hours" Los Angeles Times
'Patrick Radden Keefe [is] one of the top narrative nonfiction authors of his generation' TIME
In 2019, a London teenager, Zac Brettler, mysteriously fell to his death from a luxury apartment building on the banks of the Thames. When his grieving parents began their desperate quest to understand how their son had died, they made a terrible discovery: Zac had been leading a fantasy life, posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.
In his inimitably gripping and forensic prose, Baillie Gifford Prize winner and New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe follows Zac's parents on a dark journey to find out what brought Zac to the balcony that night - and how a teenager's world of make-believe drew him into the city's terrifying underworld.
London Falling is at once a devastating family tragedy, a riveting story of greed, power and deception, and an indictment of the culture that has transformed London into a haven for the malignant forces that have come to influence us all.
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.
