In this age of AI deepfakes, denialism, and conflicting narratives dressed up as “alternative facts,” it can be difficult to tease out the heart of a matter. This is even more true when a fraught situation arises, such as the death — ostensibly by suicide but under curious circumstances — of a young man who seems to have been living multiple lives. In London Falling, master storyteller Patrick Radden Keefe attempts, with compassion and clarity, to untangle just such a situation.

In many respects, Zac Brettler was an average 19-year-old: obsessed with fast cars and cash, prone to bragging (and exaggerating) about his accomplishments, often moody and withdrawn. “In a way that wasn’t all that unusual for a twenty-first-century teenager,” Keefe notes, “Zac could sometimes comport himself as if he were auditioning for a rap video, strutting around like a badass, affecting a scowling pose.”

Unwisely, Brettler took his “auditioning” further by claiming, first to school friends and then to new, more dangerous acquaintances, that he was the son of a Russian oligarch — a particularly believable narrative in London, a city rife with oligarchs.

(As the Soviet Union lurched into its ponderous collapse, men who’d grown rich on its spoils “started looking for safe havens abroad where law and order prevailed and they could securely park their money — and, if necessary, themselves,” Keefe explains. London, it turns out, was just such a haven.)

Zac Ismailov, as he styled himself, claimed to live in a swanky Hyde Park apartment and be empowered to make investments on behalf of his billionaire father. When they heard about his supposed affluence, two of Brettler’s new acquaintances, Akbar Shamji and Verinder Sharma, set about attempting to convince their naïve friend to invest in their business endeavors — the latest in a long line of scams whose only outcomes were to separate the rich from their capital and flee before they could be prosecuted.

Brettler began spending significant amounts of time with these men, even living on and off in a luxury apartment also occupied by Sharma. Riverwalk, as the complex was known, abutted the Thames and sat squarely across the river from the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s foreign-intelligence agency. On November 29, 2019, in the early hours of the morning, MI6 security cameras captured some unusual footage. Writes Keefe:

“At 2:23, [Brettler] walked out onto the balcony, moved to one corner and then the other, returned to the center, then jumped into the Thames.”

A man walking to work discovered his body several hours later and called police. When one officer opined to an onlooker that it was likely a suicide, the onlooker responded, “Then why is he missing half his face?”

Brettler had been in regular contact with his parents, Matthew and Rachelle, and as days passed without word from him, they became increasingly anxious, begging him to come home or at least talk to them. Perhaps because of a terror attack that also took place in London on November 29th, or maybe because the city’s Metropolitan Police is a labyrinthine organization, officials weren’t able to identify Brettler’s body and notify his family until December 3rd.

By that point, Matthew and Rachelle had already reached out to Shamji, who spun both them and the police a tale about having been merely a tangential influence in the young man’s life. Sharma and Shamji, the latter insisted, were simply father figures trying to help a troubled teen who was addicted to drugs. Unfortunately, he lost the battle with his personal demons.

Yet almost immediately, there were cracks in this story. Why, if Brettler was suicidal, had he texted his mother about an upcoming driver’s license exam for which he wanted to study? Why did Shamji tell a friend that he had “just been heating up knives and cleaning up blood” shortly before Brettler’s fall? Why, after leaving Riverwalk on the fatal night, did Shamji make an abrupt return?

“A camera captured Akbar approaching the concrete wall overlooking the river,” Keefe reports. “He craned his body to lean over the wall, then peered into the water at precisely the spot where Zac had just plunged into it. Then Akbar straightened, returned to his car, and drove away.”

If the narrative seemed suspect, the police were equally unhelpful. They declined to share significant details of their investigation with the Brettlers, and what they did make available gave the grieving parents more cause for worry: It seemed the case was being bungled — or worse, intentionally sidelined. Rachelle and Matthew soon realized they’d have to do their own legwork and uncover their own answers.

It’s largely their journey that Keefe, a friend of the Brettlers, chronicles so meticulously in London Falling. Fans of rigorous reporting, multilayered true-crime stories, and portraits of families in crisis will find something to love in this tour de force.

Mariko Hewer is a freelance editor and writer, as well as a nursery-school teacher. She is passionate about good books, good food, and good company.