Want something ABSOLUTELY GRIPPING? Read Patrick Radden Keefe’s latest work of narrative nonfiction, London Falling.

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 AM 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, 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.

Keefe unpicks the detail of the fateful night, but it is the lead-up to Zac’s death that is truly astounding. Zac had created a secret life. Notably, 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 London’s criminal underworld, as well as partying with the elite in private nightclubs, and brokering business deals.

Zac’s parents, Rachelle and Matthew Brettler, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac, not helped by the unwillingness of Scotland Yard to pursue the known gangsters that Zac had associated with.

Remember the days when television shows were metered out one episode at a time, and each week you’d be left with a cliffhanger? Keefe does that, but with chapters and as a result, London Falling is compulsively readable. But his true genius lies in his use of scale – Keefe moves between a considered and intimate portrait of the Brettlers’ grief and a meticulous exploration of London’s billionaire-fueled criminal underworld.

Clear your schedule because once you start reading this book, it will be hard to stop.

5/5