A propulsive true-crime story and surgical critique of the city’s glamorous façade and dark underbelly ... Ever a deft stylist ... His reporting is broad and agile, his prose sharp-edged ... Yet in a book about concealed (occasionally half-concealed) agendas, it’s fitting that Keefe has an agenda of his own. When the Met’s 'maddeningly incurious' detective stonewalls the Brettlers’ queries, the author becomes their sleuth ... Why not probe Zac’s sociopathic tendencies? Was Keefe co-opted by his friendship with the Brettlers? London Falling treads the fine line journalists walk when they bring biases to their reportage.
The best true-crime stories use a particular event as a key to unlock a world, and Patrick Radden Keefe’s latest work of investigative nonfiction, London Falling, does just that ... While Keefe eventually comes up with a plausible scenario of what happened to Zac, for multifarious reasons—primarily that everyone involved was a liar—we’ll never know the truth for sure. In the end, however, all the stories Keefe assembles in London Falling strongly suggest that it was the city that destroyed the boy ...
Character-rich ... Chronicles the oversights by Scotland Yard in Zac’s case in meticulous detail ... Written with great respect not only for the family but also for the form – honouring the rhythm of a book-length exposé, rather than with an eye towards adaptation ... Like all of Keefe’s work, the book makes for propulsive reading.
This tour de force of staggering yet sensitive reportage also brings in England’s colonial past, the history of the banking industry, and the stories of Zac’s Holocaust-survivor grandfathers.
A meticulously researched propulsive thriller ... With empathetic insight, Keefe deftly sifts through facts and fictions to distill Zac's young life, enthrallingly seeking the unknowable truth of his tragic death.
Gripping ... Keefe’s approach is profoundly humane, particularly in his intimate interviews with Zac’s parents, Matthew and Rachelle, who convey a deep desire to understand their late son. Despite the murky material, Keefe arrives at an artful and clarifying explanation. It’s a remarkable new turn for the celebrated author.
