London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

This is investigative non-fiction at its best and most compelling, although the mystery of a London teenager who plummeted to his death from a luxury apartment into the Thames is ultimately tragic and shocking. His grieving parents discovered their son Zac had been posing as the son of a Russian oligarch, drawing him into a terrifying, shadowy underworld of extreme wealth, ruthlessness and deceit.

Zac Brettler was a fun-loving, imaginative boy with a gift for storytelling, with loving parents and an older brother, growing up in London. He had a fascination with fancy cars, but when he attended the private school Mill Hill, he rubbed shoulders with the children of the Russian elite; his personality changed dramatically as a result of the company he kept. His fascination with fancy cars turned into an obsession with becoming wealthy.

He began inventing a fantasy life, which led him to make friends with some very dangerous people, and he soon found himself out of his depth. Patrick Radden Keefe, an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker, looks at every aspect of Zac’s death, from the grieving parents to the police case to the criminal world of key people who were on the scene when Zac died. It’s a fascinating book that examines a side of London very few of us would know about. It’s written with a great deal of empathy as the author peels back the layers in an attempt to reach the truth.

Reviewer: Karen McMillan

Picador