A winding river of lies

Most good parents aspire for their children to end up as at least two things: moral, responsible members of society and employees in honest, decent-paying careers. Few ever think that wanting them to live into their 20s should be on the list. Yet as was tragically the case in November 2019, that is where Matthew and Rachelle Brettler found themselves. Their son Zac, aged 19, was found dead, his body lying facedown in the River Thames outside of a luxury apartment complex in central London called Riverwalk after having jumped from a balcony on the fifth floor. Zac’s parents soon discovered he had been falsely portraying himself as the son of a Russian oligarch to some shady personalities, instead of as the middle-class Jewish schoolboy that he really was. Matthew and Rachelle quickly came to the conclusion that this was anything but a routine adolescent suidice.

The saga that commenced as the Brettlers tried to come to terms with Zac’s untimely and perplexing demise has been scintillatingly reconstructed by Patrick Radden Keefe in London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth (Doubleday, 384 pp.). Keefe, author of multiple bestselling books including Say Nothing, serves as a staff writer for The New Yorker where he first wrote about the puzzling layers of secrecy and evasion surrounding Zac Brettler’s death. Keefe provides a robust amount of background for London’s criminal underworld and for the two men who had been with Zac before he died, Akbar Shamji and Verinder Sharma. The author deftly depicts the backstabbing and overinflated egos. 

Though unable to offer any definitive insights about what led Zac Brettler to jump that fateful night, London Falling still serves as a reminder for biblically minded Christians that even when justice might not find its full due on this side of eternity, we know that no one truly escapes punishment forever. It is also a sobering exploration of how quickly and quietly insecurity can seep into the hearts of those we love most and lead them down troubling paths amid social media’s continuing ills.