London Falling

A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth

By: Patrick Radden Keefe

Narrated by: Patrick Radden Keefe

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling, prizewinning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface

“Another blockbuster feat of reportage. . . . I sprinted through this addictive book in three days and gasped more than once at the true story’s twists and turns.”
—Esquire

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR

In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river.

In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend for the weekend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: Her son was dead.

In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji and a murderous gangster known as Indian Dave. As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers’ quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private nightclubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.

He doesn't again

Radden Keefe has quickly become my favorite non-fiction writer. The excellence of the research and story telling is masterful.

In this case, a serious injustice was done. The outrage I feel for Zac and his family is overwhelming. A child is dead and law enforcement lazily sauntered through this case like somebody had stolen a pet rock. What a damned shame. And, a strategic blunder, as police missed the opportunity to take down some major players in London organized crime through this investigation. Wasted.

Completely enthralling

This is a story of a particular family’s tragedy but also a social history of London from the 1980s to 2019. It is so vivid that one feels she has just leafed through an album of photos while listening to a great storyteller describing the story behind each. Fantastic.

It’s very well told story and very interesting, but it tends to take too long to get to the point and very indirect

I enjoyed the reader very much, the actual story was very interesting but took way too long to get to the point

Another classic

The best journalist working today. Great narration from the author himself. Another classic tale of intrigue and corruption by Keefe.

London Falling - positively riveting chapter after chapter….

The incredible research clearly performed to write this book is nothing short of awe-inspiring. The only thing that kept me from finishing the book start to finish in one sitting was purely time related on my part. The care Mr. Radden Keefe took to describe and fully illuminate each detail should be the gold standard for future nonfiction authors. What an incredible story of a curious life that was cut short far too soon. Well worth the read. My sincere condolences to Brettler family.