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

Quotes

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, TIME, Oprah Daily, Vulture, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Cultured, LitHub, Service95, Bookriot

“Consider this a real-life Harlan Coben novel. After 19-year-old Zac Brettler plunges to his death in the river Thames, his grieving family discovers his secret life posing as the heir of a phony Russian oligarch. From there, Keefe reconstructs the seedy underbelly of London that the Brettlers delve into as they attempt to pinpoint what—or who—killed their son.”
—The New York Times

“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.”
—Adam Morgan, Esquire

“A remarkable true-crime story. A 19-year-old fell to his death in London. Behind the tragedy lay so much more, as Keefe’s latest book uncovers. . . . The best true-crime stories use a particular event as a key to unlock a world, and Patrick Radden Keefe’s latest work of investigative nonfiction, London Falling, does just that. Keefe finds, in the death of one teenager, both a private loss and a parable of the decay of a once great city.”
—Laura Miller, Slate

“A propulsive true-crime story and surgical critique of the city’s glamorous façade and dark underbelly. . . . His reporting is broad and agile, his prose sharp-edged. . . . Keefe has written a morality tale for an amoral age while entertaining us with shootouts, robberies, heroin deals, and an enigmatic puzzle. His journalism is rooted in our obligations to each other, old-fashioned Eagle Scout citizenship, at a moment when might makes right and obscene wealth overwhelms our institutions.”
—Boston Globe

“[Keefe] brings his capacious literary toolbox to a true-life tale that opens with the apparent suicide. . . . [His] stylish, suspenseful prose shines a light onto the seedy underworld beneath an international capital.”
—TIME

“Gripping. . . . Keefe is a master at using true crime as a vehicle for exploring social and political pathologies.”
—NPR

“A profound exploration of parental grief and the search for accountability in a city that often protects its most shadowy residents. . . . Compelling.”
—Air Mail

“Nobody writes like Patrick Radden Keefe; nobody makes achieving something so powerfully complex and difficult look so easy. It’s a form of intellectual generosity and, I think, a form of genius. London Falling is a book everyone should read; it grips like a steel trap. To finish it is to be furious at the corruption, criminality and brutality hidden behind the facades of London’s wealth—but the warmth of the authorial voice, and the grace of the Brettler family, keep you from despairing.”
—Katherine Rundell, author of The Transformations of John Dunne and Vanishing Treasures

“Keefe, the author of some of this century’s finest nonfiction, has crafted another masterwork. This is a penetrating portrait of a young man destroyed by malignant influences given free rein in a global hub of capitalist excess. . . . Keefe might be our sharpest chronicler of the intersection of criminal opportunism and institutional fecklessness. . . . This is powerful reporting, a potential classic about the dangerous allure of a city remade as ‘a twenty-four-hour laundromat for dirty money.’ An exemplary account of naïveté, wealth, and menace, impeccably told by a top-notch journalist.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[A] gripping investigation into a young man’s mysterious death. . . . In between piecing together the facts, Keefe zooms out, vividly portraying the morass of the modern London underworld. . . . 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.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A meticulously researched propulsive thriller. . . . A feat of remarkable reportage. . . . Irresistible. . . . Keefe’s unerringly razor-sharp attention links these disparate elements of heedless ambition, uninhibited risks, and otherworldly privilege that created a powerful vacuum of want in a tenacious teen desperate for access. With empathetic insight, Keefe deftly sifts through facts and fictions to distill Zac’s young life, enthrallingly seeking the unknowable truth of his tragic death.”
—Shelf Awareness