Catherine Raynes: London Falling and Click

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe  

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 AM 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. 

Click by Sarah Bailey  

Melbourne is gripped by fear after a backpacker's body is found with a cryptic note, and two more women vanish without trace. When photographs begin to arrive in the inboxes of the media and police, it's clear the killer isn't hiding - they are performing. 

Journalist Oli Groves, founder of a fledgling digital news site, knows the story could make or break her. Rookie detective Penelope Kibbs, still trying to prove herself, is desperate to stop the violence before more women are lost. But they soon realise the danger runs deeper than one killer - and closer than they want to believe. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be Catherine reigns our book reviewers here with her
two reads for the weekend. Get a Catherine, Good morning Jack.
I'm really excited about your first book, and I know
I am not the only one. I have to be honked.
I've actually got a little advanced copy, so I've read
London Falling already, but you better tell us about it.
Tell us about London Falling by Patrick raden Keith.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
So. Patrick graden Keith is investigative julist. He has written
all sorts of books about US national security, the troubles
in Northern Ireland. He wrote a book away while ago,
called The Imprived Pain, about OxyContin and this is quite
different from his other books in the sense that he
looked at it quite widely, at things at industry and
global issues. And this is about the tragedy of losing

(00:54):
a child. And there's the mystery and the ceedy truths
behind London and their posh mansions and private nightclubs and
everything's for sale and the sort of aspirational life that
you can read, but the dirty money and corruption that
goes behind that and so it talks about the death
of a young man who was nineteen, Zach Bridler, and

(01:14):
his death is ruled by suicide, and it's barely investigated
by the police, and then the family starts asking some
really uncomfortable questions about him. So in the last minutes
of his life, he stepped out on the fifth four
balcony of a flat overlooking the Thames, and he walked
to each side of the balcony and then he plunges
over the side into the river below, except as fall

(01:36):
was obstructed and he died, and that fall was actually
captured by mi I six in a building that was
facing Zach's And so without that film, it really looks
like a suicide. And his appearance, Rachelle and Matthew just
don't believe that it is, and they start to research
and his personality had changed, and he was unhappy with
his life and he just thought that he was meant

(01:57):
for bigger and more glamorous things, and he starts to
change his family history and rather than being the son
of two middle class parents, he starts to tell people
he is the son of this Russian oligarch, and he
changes his name to Zach Asamov, and you know, stories
upon stories and lies and all everything seems plausible with
his wealthy friends and he's hanging out at these bars

(02:18):
and what in reality is that he's actually been set
up by his so called friends and this underworld of
London who really think he has access to millions and
they want their share. And the Bretler's investigate their death,
and you know, they meet this brick wall of Scotland
Yard who seem unable or unwilling to bring or talk
about it at all. And the book's broken up into

(02:39):
the three parts. You learn about Zach and his story
and then this world of underworld of London, and then
the final part is talking about Bretler's and Keith himself
as they're trying to untangle really what happened to him.
And it's this very deeply personal family story and it's
about grief and it's double lives and also just about
that undervalley world of London.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, it's amazing, oh so good. So that's London Falling
by Patrick Raden Keith. You've also read Clique by Sarah Bailey.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
So this is against the backdrop of Melbourne in twenty
twenty and so there'd been bushfires going on and they'd
caused huge devastation, and the rumors of COVID are just
starting to peer and filter out into the public domain.
And then you get this really high stakes news story
that's going on, and it begins with this young Melbourne
woman a guy, a woman called Lyra Marcus, and she's

(03:28):
gone missing after last being sent at this very high
end house party and to investigate his dia, Mike Burns
and DC Penelope also known as pen Kids are pulled
off the investigation that they're working about on another missing
woman in Camberwell Mum to do this welfare check on
this woman, Lyrah, and they visit a flat and there's
just no clues and they've got no idea what could

(03:49):
have happened to her. And then things change when this
image has sent to the newspapers and a killers sent
this photograph to one of the local Melbourne newspapers of
this murdered woman, and this journalist Oli Grove, she also
gets involved. She's in the digital news world and she's
trying to make a name for herself and so this
case you get you're looking over the shoulders of both

(04:10):
Olive and Penn So you see how it unfolds from
both a media and police perspective, and this immense pressure
cooker of media scrutiny and lots of baried secrets to
be uncovered by all the characters. And it's this great
atmosphere thriller crime novel. Yeah, it's just it's the way
the premise is set up is excellent and the story
the story follows along in the same day.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Superb. Right. That's Click by Sarah Bailey. Catherine's first read
for us this week London Falling by Patrick rad and Keith.
All of the details for both of those books is
up at Newstalks dB dot co dot nz.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news talks he'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio