Gripping, rigorous and smart, London Falling takes a terrible mystery with an extraordinary cast of characters and somehow manages to make it perfectly encapsulate the weirdness of how London has mutated these past decades . . .
breathtaking
Jon Ronson
[Keefe] has a real gift for storytelling, an ability to unfurl the narrative in a way that is completely engrossing
Louis Theroux
I've barely left the house since starting Patrick Radden Keefe’s superbly gripping London Falling . . . it will become a defining book of our time
Johanna Thomas-Corr, chief literary critic, The Times and Sunday Times
He is a master — perhaps even the master — of the non-fiction narrative, and has an enviable knack for telling complicated stories with perfect clarity
The Sunday Times
A compulsive tale of money, lies and avoidable tragedy . . . a scrupulously researched work of narrative nonfiction . . . London Falling, grimly absorbing from start to finish, opens a window on to a world of financial dirty work and Walter Mitty-like fantasies of aspirational wealth
The Guardian
Magnificent . . .
London Falling is partly – and brilliantly – about the way London affects its young, forcing them to grow up so fast within sight of corruption . . .
riveting and powerful . . . [Keefe] has a
dramatist’s gift for structure and a novelist’s fascination with human character and motive . . . [An]
enthralling masterpiece, by one of the world’s great non-fiction writers
Observer
Engrossing . . . In deftly unpicking [the story], Keefe makes it terrifyingly clear what dangerous company Zac had got himself into . . . rigorous and thoughtful
The Telegraph
Fortunately for him and his family, Zac Brettler came the way of
one of the finest, and most famous, magazine writers in the English-speaking world, Patrick Radden Keefe . . . When Keefe flies into Heathrow, he comes to knock on the conscience of a nation . . . such
a richly plotted maze, as twisting and interconnected as a nervous system . . . full of such
extraordinarily rich scenes
New Statesman
London Falling is a parable of a 21st-century global city’s moral decay . . . I was intrigued by whether an American writer could capture the nuances of the city’s metamorphosis. Keefe does so admirably . . .
Through masterful narration and exhaustive research, Keefe leaves the reader with little doubt as to why Brettler jumped
Financial Times
Keefe's mastery of timing makes this investigation a page-turner . . .
we are fortunate to have him pounding the pavement to expose real-life darkness . . . in
London Falling, the Brettlers' private story points to a larger one of a city changed by money . . .
like all of Keefe’s work, the book makes for propulsive reading
The Irish Times
A masterclass of evidence-chasing, narrative clarity and authorial empathy . . . unputdownable
Literary Review
As this dark book makes clear, the city’s “glitzy, mercenary, aspirational culture” allows grifters and gangsters to thrive
The Economist
Patrick Radden Keefe has published some of the most memorable nonfiction books of the last decade . . . [he writes] about emotionally complex, morally fraught subjects with sensitivity and skill
The New York Times
A gripping real-life thriller that takes you on a deeply researched tour of the city’s criminal underground. It broke me out of a can’t-seem-to-finish-a-book rut
The New York Times
London Falling is, it goes without saying, a masterpiece . . . perhaps the finest work of non-fiction about the London criminal classes
The Fence
Gripping . . . he has penned another classic in London Falling
Irish Examiner
His most gripping book yet . . . As always with Keefe the pages turn themselves, and he sidesteps the exploitative pitfalls of the true crime genre by finding thrills in the margins . . . For all the praise Keefe receives for the depth of his reporting,
the graceful humanity with which he approaches his subjects in
London Falling is what ultimately leaves an impact
New York Magazine
Another blockbuster feat of reportage . . . I sprinted through this addictive book in three days and gasped more than once at the true story’s twists and turns
Esquire
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 . . . Keefe finds, in the death of one teenager, both a private loss and a parable of the decay of a once great city
Slate
How an American writer has managed to capture the nuances of London, its mores and class structure, is
extraordinarily impressive . . . As ever with Keefe, the
narratives are spliced masterfully, history is condensed tightly and characters are introduced (and then reintroduced) with an almost
cinematic flourish . . .
London Falling has a
novelistic intimacy
Spear's
[Keefe] brings his capacious literary toolbox to a true-life tale . . . [His] stylish, suspenseful prose shines a light onto the seedy underworld beneath an international capital
TIME
[The book is] written with
Keefe’s customary and compelling flair . . . He is that
rarest of reporter birds, a deeply thorough investigative journalist who can actually write and tell a gripping human story . . . his
mastery of the cliffhanger and suspenseful storytelling is what gives his non-fiction books their
novelistic feel . . . Keefe’s
relentless drive to get to the bottom of the story [and]
distaste for the excesses of capitalism . . . drives the
compulsive energy of
London Falling
The Globe and Mail
Mesmerizing. More addictive than any box set, this book will break your heart, instil you with cold rage, and make you see London in a completely new light
Sathnam Sanghera
Patrick Radden Keefe has done it again - a phenomenal book that will stay in your soul long after the last page. London Falling is a tale of money and fantasy, fear and deception - that leads a deeply loved teenager to his death.
Haunting, harrowing, and rich with empathy - it captures how easily a life can go wrong in the shadows of a city bankrolled by billionaires. A grieving parent’s questions go unanswered; a vital clue is met with an official shrug. And the crimes of the capital are swallowed up beneath a gleaming corporate veneer.
This is a chilling story - told with humanity, curiosity and quiet outrage. It’s one that simply will not let you go. Put the phone to airplane mode, turn on the out-of-office: I guarantee you won’t want to be disturbed
Emily Maitlis
Monumentally good. Patrick Radden Keefe is the finest non-fiction writer we have: a born storyteller with a fluent mastery of structure who marshals exceptional reporting with unsentimental compassion. London Falling tells the story of a family tragedy and of a city in flux, while also tracing a lineage of generational trauma and the human capacity for reinvention.
I will never look at my city in quite the same way again
Elizabeth Day
Troubling, humane and gripping, a journey across London’s dark heart and the murky death of a young man –
part thriller, part psychological journey, part modern morality tale, Keefe is a literary non-fiction great and he’s done it again
Philippe Sands
A gripping, heartbreaking and unsettling book about my city - a city, it turns out, I don’t know at all. Patrick Radden Keefe’s
X-ray vision exposes the hidden networks, the dirty money, and our depressing surrender to malevolent billionaires.
London Falling is important and brilliant
Nick Hornby
Nobody writes like Patrick Radden Keefe; nobody makes achieving something so powerfully complex and difficult look so easy. It’s a form of intellectual generosity and, I think, a form of genius. London Falling is a book everyone should read; it grips like a steel trap. To finish it is to be furious at the corruption, criminality and brutality hidden behind the facades of London’s wealth - but the warmth of the authorial voice, and the grace of the Brettler family, keep you from despairing
Katherine Rundell
Fabulous. Humane, rigorous, utterly fascinating and a page-turner
Mark Haddon
I found it both completely riveting and heart-rending . . . it haunted me
Sarah Jessica Parker
Absolutely incredible. He simply can't write a bad book
Josh Widdicombe
Another tour de force, as gripping and compulsive as Say Nothing and Empire of Pain . . . Keefe beautifully interweaves the broader tale of London’s historical descent into stench and corruption with a painfully humane family story. As with all his books, there’s a quiet but
deeply moral purpose behind the bravura storytelling. I found the book impossible to put down and many, many times I found myself burning with rage
Dr Rachel Clarke
Eye-opening about a city you may think you know, enraging, and profoundly moving. Patrick Radden Keefe has done it again, showing he is one of the finest investigative journalists and non-fiction writers of his generation
Kavita Puri
Gripping, beautifully written, incredibly researched and deeply humane, it is a masterpiece of modern London
Tom Parker Bowles
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
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Gripping . . . Keefe is a master at using true crime as a vehicle for exploring social and political pathologies
NPR
A propulsive true-crime story and surgical critique of the city’s glamorous façade and dark underbelly . . . His reporting is broad and agile, his prose sharp-edged
Boston Globe
A very fine writer and reporter . . . he has made a
highly readable book . . .
The first part of the book reads like a thriller. But the story that ends up being told is sadder and more intimate than the mystery first promised
Foreign Policy
Keefe, the author of some of this century’s finest nonfiction, has crafted another masterwork . . . Keefe might be our sharpest chronicler of the intersection of criminal opportunism and institutional fecklessness . . .
This is powerful reporting, a potential classic about the dangerous allure of a city remade as ‘a twenty-four-hour laundromat for dirty money.’
An exemplary account of naïveté, wealth, and menace, impeccably told by a top-notch journalist
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
