Welcome to the Book Review Book Club! Every month we select a book to discuss with our readers. Last month we read “John of John,” by Douglas Stuart. (You can also find past book club discussions in the Book Review podcast feed.)
For the Brettlers, it was a loss that was as tragic as it was confounding: In 2019, the family’s 19-year-old son Zac disappeared; days later, his body was found in the Thames. Surveillance footage showed Zac appearing to jump off the balcony of a luxury tower, leading some to speculate that he had taken his own life. But the Brettlers didn’t believe that theory: Zac never seemed suicidal, though in the weeks leading up to his death, he was increasingly erratic and nervous.
So what happened?
That’s exactly what the reporter and writer Patrick Radden Keefe explores in “London Falling.”
For the Brettlers, Zac was an enigma. As a child, he was charismatic, but in his teenage years he grew moody and secretive. After his death, the Brettlers learned something they couldn’t explain: Zac had been claiming to be the rich son of a Russian oligarch, and had fallen in with a dangerous crowd in London’s crime scene.
As Keefe unspools the story and hunts for the truth, he not only unveils the dark, shadowy world that surrounded Zac but also reveals the intricate web of events and politics that led to it.
In August, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss “London Falling,” by Patrick Radden Keefe. We’ll be chatting about it on the Book Review podcast that airs on Aug. 28, and we’d love for you to join the conversation. Share your thoughts about the book in the comments section of this article by Aug. 20, and we may mention your observations in the episode.
Here’s some related reading to get you started.
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Our review of “London Falling”: “Zac is at the center of ‘London Falling.’ But Keefe situates his death on a bigger canvas: a city that has tried to address its collapsing industrial base by becoming increasingly dependent on oligarch money, and a police force that is woefully underfunded and plagued by complacency and corruption.” Read the full review here.
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Our podcast interview with Patrick Radden Keefe about “London Falling,” where he talks about reporting the story, what he found, and what drew him to this case in the first place: “I was really interested in the role of the oligarchs in coming into London and changing the face of that city in recent decades. And then I hear this story about a family, and I do tend to gravitate to stories about families.” Listen to the full interview here.
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Our recent profile of Keefe, about how he’s grappling with his increasing fame as an author and the intensity of his work: “Like many good reporters, Keefe is adept at deflecting attention, pushing it back toward his interlocutor or onto some subject of mutual interest. He resists psychological probing. ‘I’m like a computer that reboots every morning,’ he said on another occasion. ‘No matter how bad a day has been, I wake up in the morning full of optimism.’” Read the full profile here.
We can’t wait to discuss this book with you.
The post Book Club: Read ‘London Falling,’ by Patrick Radden Keefe, With the Book Review appeared first on New York Times.
