LONDON FALLING

This month, The Reading Den has chosen a riveting true crime narrative by best selling non-fiction author Patrick Radden Keefe who investigates the unexplained death of nineteen year old Zac Brettler. Zac mysteriously plunged to his death from a luxury apartment balcony overlooking the Thames in November 2019 on the same day as the London Bridge terrorist attack. This moment was captured by one of the surveillance cameras on MI6’s headquarters located opposite. To this day, his desperate parents are still trying to seek the truth of how a normal teenager became entangled in a web of a wealthy underground violence.

Matthew and Rachelle Brettler both grew up in the UK as children of Jewish immigrants. After marrying, they built a comfortable middle class life in north London with their two sons, Joe and Zac, both charming and sporty. The two boys shared a happy childhood within their loving tight knit family. This all changed when Zac didn’t gain entry to the same academic school as Joe and was consequently forced to go to the ‘posh’ school slightly further away. Having always been the more confident, witty and charming of the two brothers, he suddenly started hanging around with the sons of oligarchs, wearing flash clothes and driving fast cars (all the traits his own parents avoided).

Zac’s parents had become aware of the change in their son, but found themselves in the difficult position of trying to protect him and yet allow him the freedom he desired. Their concerns grew when Zac began to keep company with two elder men, 55 year old Akbar Shamji, a rich Turk with a gusto for life and 47 year old Verinder Sharma, a supposedly successful businessman known as the top dog who immediately adopted the role as Zac’s protector. The alarm bells arose when Zac started to refer to himself as Zac Ismailov, declaring he was a cocaine addict and flashing cash in casinos and bars.

Zac disappeared on 29th November and his damaged body was discovered in the Thames several hours later. His grief stricken parents were bewildered by how their son could have ended his life in this way and so begins a long and tireless search for the truth. They employ a private detective and discover the vast web of lies Zac had created about himself. The problem being these lies had been concocted in ‘dangerous circles’ of powerful men. A constant question emerged, how far were Akbar and Sharma involved in Zac’s death and should they be held accountable? It is notable that neither attended his funeral and when finally, properly interrogated by the police, were able to account for their whereabouts and explain their actions. Akbar Shamji seems to have cleverly disassociated himself from any involvement in Zac’s death despite being the last person to be with him on that tragic night.

This is a fast paced, fascinating and incredibly well researched narrative. At times, the Den felt it was perhaps too one sided, as whilst Keefe acknowledges Zac’s web of lies, he continually counter argues that this sudden behavioural change was out of character and that Zac had been forced into an underworld beyond his control. Yet Keefe’s understanding of all the facts, particularly the background of all those surrounding Zac, led us all to consider the possibility that there is definitely another side to this tragedy as he reveals the power of the grim, corrupt financial underworld. Yet maybe it is Zac’s parents’ unwillingness to accept what happened which has driven Keefe to also believe that there is more to this story, than a confused, fantasist taking his own life. The un-abiding question is whether Zac jumped from the fifth floor balcony to end his life or to try and escape being killed?