Preeta Chag

Pub by: Picador (2026) –Kindle Edition

Zac Brettler jumps off the high balcony of RiverWalk, a prestigious address in London, captured by the surveillance camera of the building opposite, the M16 headquarters. And thus unravels the story of a young teenager, living a double life ostensibly, lured by the glamour of extreme wealth and power and plunging shockingly to death.

Initially written as an article for The New Yorker, it unfolds as an on-the-edge investigation by Patrick Radden Keefe. A meticulously researched document, the book is also a revelation of the dark, mysterious underbelly of London.

Zac Brettler, the son of respectable parents, Mathew and Rachelle Brettler, is fine till the time he starts to attend the Mill Hill School. In the company of the rich and dubious, he begins to get pulled into and entranced by a life of riches and power.

The book narrates how the vortex of money, power, glamour, shady and criminal propels him to lead a double life, taking on a false identity of a Russian oligarch’s son, who in those years had come to dominate the criminal and real estate landscape of the city.

Seemingly taken in by his identity, Virendra Sharma and Akbar Shamji become his regular cronies, wanting to maybe pump his supposed wealth from him.

The book tries to unravel the fatal connections among the three of them, leading to his fall from the balcony in November 2019.

Completely unaware of his double life, his parents are dazed and stunned at the revelation. But they are relentless in trying to find out what happened to their son. Did he really jump or was he forced to do so? What happened in the apartment and in those final moments between Virendra Sharma, Akbar Shamji, and Zac that made him go over the edge? Patrick Keefe has investigated the details bravely and thoroughly, aided by the thoroughness of the father, who has been jotting down notes all the time, searching for answers. While writing and researching for the book, the Metropolitan Police declined to cooperate with this book.

It is sad how a family gets pulled into this vortex of the son’s greed and ambition, and is unable to control or restrain him for the fear of losing him. The London of the 1990s was inundated by the Russian oligarchs and many billionaires from other parts of the world as a tax haven, completely altering the dynamics of the city; well-explained and narrated by Patrick Keefe. “London is to the billionaires as the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutan,” Boris Johnson who at the time was the city’s mayor boasted in 2014.

The city became a magnet not only for the money, but also for the dangerous. “…. this other dimension to the city, a realm of money and intrigue that could be intoxicating but also treacherous. ‘It’s a scary world,” Rachelle said softly.“

The book resonates with the fear of every young adult’s parents. The tentacles of social media are sometimes too strong and tight, creating an imaginary world of pleasures and power.“But Zac was coming of age not just in a city that was drunk on foreign lucre but an era of social media.”

The book reads very fast, as one tries to understand and get the answers to the questions his parents are haunted by each day. In fact, the author has created such a pace that one sometimes forgets that it is a non-fiction account of a parent’s search for truth, which we are reading.

‘London Falling’ is a labour of hard investigations by Patrick Radden Keefe. The book actually serves as a grim reminder of the treacherous attractions of fortune and fame. Of riches and power. Of the unknown and forbidden.