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

In 2019, teenager Zac Brettler mysteriously fell to his death from a luxury apartment balcony into the Thames. As his grieving parents began to investigate his final days, they were shocked to learn that he’d been leading a double life, in which he was posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. This unsolved case is at the heart of London Falling – at once a family tragedy, a psychological portrait of a young fabulist, and an indictment of the greed for extreme wealth that has transformed one of the world’s great cities: London.

Hiding in the shadows of its great architecture and imperial history are the malignant, mercenary forces that have come to influence us all – whether we realise it or not. In his inimitably gripping and forensic style, Baillie Gifford winner and New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe explores what brought Zac Brettler (the grandson of famous rabbi Hugo Gryn) to the balcony that night – and how he became involved with some of London’s most notorious gangsters.

Following Zac’s parents on a dark journey of investigation, London Falling unearths the unsettling truths they discovered – both about the sinister underworld on their doorstep, and about their son’s secret world.