I couldn’t put down Patrick Radden Keefe’s story of the November 29, 2019, death of Zac Brettler. I remember reading the story in The New Yorker of the 19-year-old Brettler jumping from a luxury apartment into the Thames River at 2:00 AM. Part of the book is a true crime story, going through the Scotland Yard investigation and its aftermath. Keefe intertwines a lot of history and background. The book gave me a good picture of ex-Soviet oligarchs and other rich, shady characters and how much they have invested and been protected in the City of London. He also delves into the family histories of everyone involved and touches on Idi Amin’s expulsion of South Asian immigrants in the 1980s out of Uganda, the background of the Jewish community in London and how the UK played a role in Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, the crime scene of London, etc.
I won’t get into the details of how the case is resolved so as not to spoil the book. My big takeaway from the book was from a parent’s perspective. Matthew and Rachelle Brettler were two hard-working, kind parents to Zac and his brother Joseph. Matthew worked in finance and Rachelle was a successful journalist and they were pillars of the Jewish community in London. It was heartbreaking to experience their grief at the death of a child and their search for answers. They felt guilty and responsible for Zac as all parents in the same situation would. Zac became infatuated with wealth and Russian gangsters/oligarchs during adolescence. He was exposed to these kinds of families at the private boarding school and eventually private day school the parents sent him to. I understand this feeling of inadequacy when I studied at Adrian College. Some of my classmates came from upper-middle-class families. Like Zac, I came from a solid middle-class family; although Matthew and Rachelle earned much more than my parents, they were not at the level of many of Zac’s classmates’ families. During the normal period of adolescence self-discovery and inadequacies, he took on the persona of a the son of a Kazakh oligarch. He was a world-class liar and there were probably some mental health issues that he was dealing with. I thought is pertinent that his ex-classmates knew a lot of what he claimed were lies. We have all known a few people like that in our lives.
Zac’s parents wished they had intervened more strongly at some point during his high school years. Zac continued to tell lies and take on this new identity. Keefe brings up a really good point towards the end of the book. How much can and do parents really know their adolescent children? How much do the pressures of social media algorithms have on them? The police shared with the parents Zac’s search history and text messages. His lies got him mixed up with real dangerous con men and criminals that ultimately led to his death. Keefe goes in depth about the lives of these guys and it is not pretty. The depravity of their ethics and morals is absolutely horrible. I don’t know how some people can live like that.
In my opinion, Zac did not try to commit suicide by jumping from the balcony that night. It was a five-story building and a challenging but not impossible leap to reach the water. Keefe goes through all the possibilities backed by evidence and testimonies. He had a lot of information to process, including mobile phone records, CCTV footage, investigation notes, interviews, etc. I think Zac was trying to escape a gangster who was shaking him down. The book made me disgusted with many of the British enablers that invest the ill-gotten wealth from around the world. The UK should clean this up.
A fascinating story and Keefe did an amazing job writing an insightful and thoughtful page-turner. I highly recommend it.
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