London Falling : A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by David Radden Keefe

When I read that David Radden Keefe had written a new book I immediately bought it. I had no idea what it was about but I had read Say Nothing, his book about The Troubles in Northern  Ireland, in 2020 and it was my favourite book that year.  London Falling tells the story of Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old boy who leapt to his death from the balcony of a luxury highrise apartment on the Thames in 2019. The apartment was occupied by gangland debt collector, drug trafficker and serious grifter, Verinder Sharma. After his death, it was revealed that Zac had been living a double life. He had been born into a loving, affluent British family and attended private schools where he met the children of foreign business tycoons. Somehow he became entangled with a group of dangerous criminals and managed to convince them that he was Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch, and someday heir to a gigantic fortune. Verinder Sharma and his criminal colleagues wanted a piece of that fortune. When he realized that Zac did not have the money he said he did, Sharma began to threaten Zac.  It sounds too preposterous to be real but this book has been meticulously researched and it is all true. 

Keefe draws on transcripts of police interrogations, emails, letters, and security camera recordings. He also describes in great detail how post Soviet oligarchs parked approximately £100 billion in London’s luxury property and financial markets transforming the city into a hub for offshore wealth. At one point I put the book down because I found the financial wheelings and dealings hard to follow. 

Zac’s grieving parents were devastated to learn about the double life that their son had kept hidden for years. They were apparently unaware that he had a heroin addiction and had been negotiating high-profile business deals. How could they have missed the signs? They attempted to determine what led him to this secret life and his tragic death and whether Zac jumped because he wanted to die or because he wanted to live. But by 2022 the investigation stalled, due in part to startlingly sloppy police work. The investigation concluded with the Crown Prosecution Service deciding there was insufficient evidence to bring charges for murder and perverting the course of justice.

It was a fascinating read and I learned a lot about London's underworld, the corruption that drives the city’s wealth and the actual ineptitude of the once esteemed Scotland Yard.