The most impressive book I’ve read for some time is “London Falling”. Patrick Radden Keefe tells the true story of Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old who committed suicide 7 years ago trying to jump into the Thames from a luxury apartment block. A fabulist pretending to be the son of a Russian oligarch, Zac was unwisely close to a gangland enforcer and drug trafficker, Verinder Sharma, also known in the criminal underworld as Indian Dave, and a dodgy cryptocurrency and real estate trader, Akbar Shamji. Sharma was in the flat overlooking the Thames when Zac plunged to his death; Shamji had been there earlier. Verinder had threatened Zac: “I’m warming the knives.”
After reading this fascinating new book you will never see London in the same light again. It paints a picture of a city with a dark underbelly of gang ubiquity, property speculation, insidious corruption, rapacious greed and a culture of bling. You may no longer admire the Metropolitan Police, who at least in this case, are shown to be weak and ineffective. Financial Times Weekend Editor Janine Gibson recommended “London Falling”: “Keefe’s investigation into a 19-year-old British man whose body was found lying broken and lifeless on the Thames riverbank and the crime, lies, money and venality that led him there, is irresistible.” I had heard about the book elsewhere and Gibson pushed me into ordering it from Bookazine.
Reviewer Sathnam Sanghera: “Mesmerising. More addictive than any box set, this book will break your heart, instill you with cold rage and make you see London in a completely different light.”
Nick Hornby: “A gripping, heart-breaking and unsettling book about my city — a city it turns out, I don’t know at all. Patrick Radden Keefe’s X-ray vision exposes the hidden networks, the dirty money and our depressing surrender to malevolent billionaires.”
Author Keefe is himself impressive. He has degrees from four universities, Columbia, Cambridge, LSE, and Yale, is a staff writer for The New Yorker, married to “international financial-crime policy lawyer” Justyna Gudzowska and has written five books: “Empire of Pain” about the Sackler family who made billions while their drug Oxycontin killed tens of thousands; “Say Nothing”, an investigation into the Catholic-Protestant* dynamics and history of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland; “Chatter” about the American security agencies which eavesdrop on anyone suspected of potential involvement in terrorism; “The Snakehead”, a study of Madame Ping (Cheng Chui Ping) a New York gangster chief whose Snakehead mobsters smuggled immigrants from China into the US on a massive scale with cargo ships.
“London Falling” by Patrick Radden Keefe; Doubleday 2026, ISBN-10: 0385548532 ISBN-13: 978-0385548533
* A bloke walks down a street in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where he is accosted by a thuggish looking individual.
“What about ye, mucker? Ye Catholic or Protestant?”
“I’m neither. I’m an atheist.”
“Ye a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”
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