Parallel Pages: London Falling
Parallel Pages is our blog post series where we use a recent favourite read as a springboard to explore other books in the shop. This week, Buyer Molly and Returns Co-Ordinator Zoë are excited to bring you a deep dive into London Falling ahead of our event with Patrick Radden Keefe next week!
The bestselling author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain is back with the explosive new book, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth.
The premise is undeniably compelling: a London teenager falls to his death from a luxury apartment balcony and shortly after, it is revealed that he had been living a double life, convincing powerful people that he was the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. The journey to that balcony is traced by Radden Keefe with deep research and a cinematic tone, taking us through the dark underbelly of a London that is unmistakeably the playground of the super-rich.
Here are some of Molly and Zoë's suggestions for where to turn next if you can't stop thinking about the rich world (pun intended) of London Falling.
Emily St John Mandel’s novel follows a New York City man trying to escape the dangerous past that’s catching up to him, and for obvious reasons feels particularly relevant to Radden Keefe’s latest. Much like in London Falling, we follow multiple characters – a detective, a mother, a bystander, a gangster – through the corrupt world of crime on the fringes of society and witness our main character falling down a slippery slope. There’s an inevitability conveyed by each author; a strong sense that they are telling the story of the only possible result.
It is shockingly easy for Zac Brettler to play at being an oligarch’s son. The fact that nobody knows much about him only reinforces his lie because he blends so seamlessly into the secretive superrich population that flocks to London, where discretion is aided by institutional loopholes. Oliver Bullough has for many years been at the forefront of exposing these loopholes and Butler to the World details how the UK became the place to go for the most powerful and the most corrupt.
Where London Falling starts with the event of Zac Brettler’s death, Indignity starts with a photo of Lea Ypi’s grandparents that shouldn’t exist. Blurring the boundary between fact and fiction, Ypi reimagines her grandmother’s life, from the last days of the Ottoman Empire to the fascist occupation of Albania. Both Radden Keefe and Ypi have a gift when it comes to storytelling, and in both of their latest books seek to answer the question of how much we truly know about the ones we love most.
A young anarchist is bludgeoned to death with a gold bar on an abandoned farm, and a journalist investigates the truth behind the attack. But, like in London Falling, not everything is as it seems. Unconventional in structure and scathing in tone, Universality sheds new light on what truth means in the modern world, when anyone can decide to bend it to their will.
If you’re searching for another non-fiction story that you struggle to believe is true, then Bad Blood is for you. Detailing the rise - and eventual fall - of Elizabeth Holmes and her phony blood-testing technology, journalist Carreyrou takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride through one of the world’s biggest corporate frauds. Just as with London Falling, there is excellent attention to detail combined with a thriller-like pace that makes it a riveting read.
We are so excited to be hosting Patrick Radden Keefe at the Church Hill Theatre on Wednesday 5th May! Join us by booking your ticket here.
