“London Falling” opens with 19-year-old London resident Zac Brettler plunging into the River Thames from a fifth-floor balcony.
Throughout the rest of the book, journalist Patrick Radden Keefe attempts to demystify the details of Brettler’s death. As it turns out, he had an alter ego — Zac Ismailov — masquerading as the son of a Russian oligarch. Through this, Brettler developed connections within London’s criminal underworld that might have contributed to his death.
“London Falling” was released April 7 and is in its second week on The New York Times’ bestseller list. The book is an extended version of an article that Keefe, a staff writer at The New Yorker, published in the magazine in 2024.
The book is a masterclass of journalism — a testament to both Keefe’s dogged reporting skills and narrative craft. The pages almost turn themselves as Keefe extensively explores two of Brettler’s closest connections, who knew him as Ismailov: business moguls Akbar Shamji and Verinder Sharma.
Much of the book is spent exploring the web of lies constructed by the two regarding the circumstances of Brettler’s death — both were treated as suspects in the case — and their wider business empires.
The book reads like fiction, in large part due to Keefe’s extensive research that allows for a plethora of details. Oftentimes, chapters begin by addressing topics that don’t initially seem to relate to Brettler’s story, such as Muhammad Ali or Uganda’s South Asian population. However, they often serve as mini-anecdotes for the rest of the chapter, highlighting Keefe’s narrative foresight.
Keefe’s writing style can be dense at times, but the little details often prove crucial to the narrative. As I was reading, I found myself wondering how Keefe ever managed to write a shorter version of this story, much less one that fit in a magazine.
The true story of Brettler’s life, as we come to learn, is so complex that I don’t even think it could have been dreamed up in fiction. There are so many interweaving narratives and underlying motifs that I often had to remind myself to slow down or reread certain sections, just to make sure I was correctly following the complex web of details.
The quotes, pulled from interviews, articles and other reporting, are essential buoys to the story, providing a more colloquial and anecdotal — although still thematically deep — analysis of Keefe’s words.
At times, the book even has a touch of humor. While Keefe remains mostly objective, as is standard for journalists, he sometimes wryly points out the hypocrisies or interesting threads that popped up throughout the case, which he often uses to end chapters.
The book doesn’t have a clear-cut, satisfying ending that a mystery or thriller might have. Yet, Keefe’s final metaphor and conjecture about Brettler’s fate do serve as a satiating end. I can’t help but hope that the publication of “London Falling” leads to renewed interest in Brettler’s case and its unanswered questions.
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