Did London’s Dirty Money Really Kill a Teenage Fantasist?

One of the most frustrating experiences for a journalist is when a story turns out to be less than it seemed. A rise in deaths has a banal statistical explanation, a juicy tale is an exaggerated rumor, a source turns out to be more boastful than accurate.

Patrick Radden Keefe, whose 2018 book Say Nothing shot him into the rare position of a celebrity journalist, is a very fine writer and reporter, and so he has made a highly readable book out of material that was, I suspect, not what he expected. His new book, London Falling (expanded from a 2024 New Yorker piece), begins with a teenager’s mysterious death that seems connected to a world of money laundering, Russian cash, and international crime. 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, and one that has little to do with London at all.

One of the most frustrating experiences for a journalist is when a story turns out to be less than it seemed. A rise in deaths has a banal statistical explanation, a juicy tale is an exaggerated rumor, a source turns out to be more boastful than accurate.

Patrick Radden Keefe, whose 2018 book Say Nothing shot him into the rare position of a celebrity journalist, is a very fine writer and reporter, and so he has made a highly readable book out of material that was, I suspect, not what he expected. His new book, London Falling (expanded from a 2024 New Yorker piece), begins with a teenager’s mysterious death that seems connected to a world of money laundering, Russian cash, and international crime. 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, and one that has little to do with London at all.