AUDIOBOOK
About
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. Patrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and the bestselling author of five books, including Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, which received the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the FT Business Book of the Year, and Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. His most recent book is Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks. The recipient of the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, he is also the creator and host of the 8-part podcast "Wind of Change," about the strange intersection of Cold War espionage and heavy metal music, which was named the #1 podcast of 2020 by Entertainment Weekly and the Guardian and has been downloaded more than 10 million times. He grew up in Boston and now lives in New York. New Yorker staff writer and Baillie Gifford-winning author of Empire Pain Patrick Radden Keefe returns with a stunning story of corruption and tragedy in one of the world's great cities: London.
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. Patrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and the bestselling author of five books, including Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, which received the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the FT Business Book of the Year, and Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. His most recent book is Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks. The recipient of the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, he is also the creator and host of the 8-part podcast "Wind of Change," about the strange intersection of Cold War espionage and heavy metal music, which was named the #1 podcast of 2020 by Entertainment Weekly and the Guardian and has been downloaded more than 10 million times. He grew up in Boston and now lives in New York. New Yorker staff writer and Baillie Gifford-winning author of Empire Pain Patrick Radden Keefe returns with a stunning story of corruption and tragedy in one of the world's great cities: London.