London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth

這部作品來自《什麼都別說》與《疼痛帝國》的獲獎暢銷作家，講述了一個家庭因 19 歲兒子猝死而分崩離析，隨後卻發現他曾創造了一段秘密生活，將他捲入倫敦華麗表面下危險刑事犯罪世界的迷人記錄。

2019 年 11 月 29 日凌晨，英國情報機構軍情六處（MI6）總部的監視攝影機捕捉到一名年輕人的身影，他在泰晤士河畔豪華大廈「河畔步道」（Riverwalk）的高層陽台上來回踱步。凌晨 2 點 24 分，他跳入了河中。

在幾英里外一個安靜的倫敦社區，拉雪兒·布雷特勒（Rachelle Brettler）正擔心著她的兒子。扎克曾告訴她要去朋友家住，但他後來沒有回家。幾天後，一輛警車停在門口，兩名警官轉達了可怕的消息：她的兒子死了。

在難以承受的悲痛中，拉雪兒和丈夫馬修（Matthew）掙扎著想理解扎克究竟發生了什麼事。他雖有自己的煩惱，但完全不像有自殺傾向。然而，他們很快就會發現，關於兒子，還有很多是他們不知道的。直到他死後，他們才得知他採用了一個虛構的化身：扎克·伊斯梅洛夫（Zac Ismailov）——一名俄羅斯寡頭之子，也是龐大財產的繼承人。在這個偽裝下，扎克與一名圓滑的倫敦商人阿克巴爾·沙姆吉（Akbar Shamji），以及一名被稱為「印度戴夫」（Indian Dave）的殺人黑幫糾纏在一起。隨著布雷特勒夫婦開始調查兒子的死因，他們被捲入了一個與他們一向所知完全不同且更加危險的倫敦，並開始相信奪走扎克生命的，是比自殺更邪惡得多的陰謀。但令他們感到巨大挫折的是，倫敦警察廳似乎無法——或不願——將兇手繩之以法。

派翠克·拉登·基夫以精湛的報導與寫作功力，記錄了布雷特勒夫婦的追尋過程，剝開重重謎團，揭露了豪宅與私人俱樂部等光鮮倫敦背後的醜惡真相——這是一個萬物皆可拋售、成功的幻想是由髒錢與貪腐所支撐的城市。《倫敦陷落》（London Falling）是對一起離奇死亡事件引人入勝的調查，也是一部由懸念與驚人發現所驅動的強大敘事。但它同時也是一場對父母之愛本質及當今為人父母挑戰的親密且深切悲痛的探詢，描繪了一個家庭不僅試圖解開兒子死亡之謎，更試圖了解他生前究竟是個什麼樣的人。

From the bestselling, prize-winning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface

In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river.

In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: her son was dead.

In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a murderous gangster known as “Indian Dave.” As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice. 

In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers’ quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private nightclubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.