Patrick Radden Keefe, London Falling
From the title reference to that historical bridge that
keeps falling down to its tale of a Jewish immigrant family fighting for
closure around the death of their son, London Falling earns a
well-deserved place on any bookshelf devoted to London, its history, and its varied
inhabitants. And it’s a true, deeply researched story that captures both a time
and place beautifully.
On one level the book could be read as a police procedural.
In that guise, it centers on a Scotland Yard investigation into whether a
victim had experienced a fatal accident, committed suicide, or been murdered.
Simultaneously, it tells the story of a
youth cut down just before he arrives at full adulthood. That narrative then
blends into his parent’s years-long attempt to understand how and why things
went horribly wrong for their son. Finally, it sets the scene during a specific
period of London history that features the city’s often unseen political,
social, and criminal underbelly.
Keefe’s retelling is based on several years of
acquaintance with Rachelle and Mathew Brettler--the young victim’s parents--and
his own interviews with the police and others who may or may not have been
involved in possible cover-ups.
Zac Brettler was nineteen years old when, in 2019, he fell
into the Thames from the fourth-floor balcony of a high-end waterfront apartment
building. As the police try to figure
out whether his death was a tragic accident, a suicide, or a murder, it is
discovered that he had assumed a startling alter ego and was posing outside of
his home as the hugely wealthy son of a Russian oligarch.
It is here that history becomes important. When the Soviet
Union disintegrated in 1991, its economy collapsed, and huge amounts of capital
held by escaping oligarchs were recycled into the British economy. These
wealthy expatriates, many with checkered pasts, began to buy up expensive real estate,
retail businesses like Harrods, manufacturing companies, and financial service
organizations. Hundreds of get-rich opportunities were set before them by young
British entrepreneurs who were more than willing to feather their own nests
while they were helping them spend their fortunes. Professional British
criminals were also quick to join in the rush to get a piece of the action.
Zac Brettler’s grieving parents soon discover that their son
was not the person they were seeing in the family home. Zac’s impersonation put
him in close contact with an assortment of unsavory characters and few of them were keen
to share what they knew about him after his death. Even more disconcerting, his
parents begin to feel that the famed Scotland Yard was slow-walking the
investigation. Not being the giving-up sort, they begin their own private investigation.
It is that search that leads into an underground London of posh mansions, fancy
cars, expensive private clubs, sexual and drug excesses, blackmail, and
violence that runs like a sewer just below the Changing of the Guard and other famed
tourist attractions. In that world, everything was for sale and fantasies, supported
by mountains of money, were running rampant.
If this sounds familiar, a recent article in The Atlantic by
Noah Hawley, titled “What I learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private
Estate,” echoes similar themes. Hawley says, If there are no cost boundaries
then “everything is free and nothing matters, then the world and other people
exist only to be acted upon, if they are acknowledged at all.” He describes the
prevailing financial and political system as built on a “take as much as you
can as fast as you can” foundation that ignores ethics and fairness to the
millions who suffer as money is siphoned into the pockets of the ultra-rich. The
only salvation may be people like Zac Brettler’s parents who stand up and fight.
I found London Falling to be engrossing and tightly
constructed. It may be too detailed for some, but each chapter does seem to add
tension by introducing new theories about what might have happened to Zac and
how genetic and environmental influences on Jewish immigrants and their
children might have contributed to his demise. I have lived in London and written
a book about its theatre history, but I learned some things about the city and
its history that I didn’t know. This
is one of the best things I’ve read this year.
I give it a strong 4.5 out of 5
