‘London Falling’: A captivating investigation into a 19-year-old’s double life and death in London

In September, 2015, Patrick Radden Keefe wrote about Ken Dornstein, whose older brother David had perished in Pan Am Flight 103 which had exploded mid-air, six miles above the earth. The debris fell over Lockerbie, Scotland. Over many decades, Ken kept trying to solve the murder mystery of his brother’s death. Who was responsible?

If a writer’s career is a sum of its parts, then all of Patrick Radden Keefe’s career has led to London Falling, his most recent non-fiction book. Ostensibly about the death of a teenager, Zac Brettler, in 2019, the book is a matryoshka doll of stories with charming rogues, liars, criminals and various nefarious types. At the heart of the tale, the centre of it is the grief and bewilderment of Zac Brettler’s parents, both children of Holocaust survivors, thoroughly decent folks who realise that their teenage son, while alive, was a fabulist of the highest order. Zac went around lying to everyone about his family and wealth. Using the name Zac Ismailov, he claimed to have been the son of a Russian oligarch.

Keefe enters the investigation into Zac Brettler at a late stage. Zac’s parents, Matthew and Rachelle had already attempted to probe the death of their son after realising...

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