The latest from Patrick Radden Keefe, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for the Truth (2026) chronicles a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, discovering that he had created a secret life within a dangerous criminal London underworld. In November 2019, surveillance video captured a young man pacing on a balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury building on the bank of the Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river. In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son, Zac, who had gone missing. Days later, police officers relayed the dreadful news: her son was dead. As Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what happened to Zac, they learned that he had adopted a fake alter-ego, posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. Under this guise, Zac became entangled within a perilous subculture of shady businessmen. But to their dismay, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring about justice. Driven by suspense, London Falling exposes the seedy truths behind the glamorous facades of London, a city where aspirational fantasies of wealth are underwritten by extortion, fraud, and sometimes violence. The also book paints an empathetic portrait of a grieving family and enduring parental love.
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