His parents were not sure why he was at that apartment and neither did they know who the man was who owned it and allowed Zac to live there rent free. They needed to find answers. And what they found out was astonishing. At times this story was too far-fetched to be a novel, but here it is, all true.
Zac was living a lie. He pretended that he was Russian and the son of an oligarch, even speaking in a Russian accent. The man he was with – known as ‘Indian Dave’ – also created an identity for himself. There was a third man in the flat that night, a very close friend of them both. They were all liars and gangsters dealing in London’s underworld but mixing with aristocracy, exclusive night clubs, football’s Premier League clubs and the monied folk. All brought about by robbery, fraud, drugs, threats, violence and murder. And storytellers.
Keefe goes into the background of each of the main players in this tragic case. They all have family secrets and find London the place to reinvent themselves, including Zac’s family who arrived as refugees after the Second World War. The research is intense. He draws extensively from transcripts of police interrogations, emails, letters, and security camera recordings, but above all on hours of conversation with Rachelle and Matthew Brettler, Zac’s parents. The research took two years. Included in this are the failings of the police and the vital evidence they missed, not just in Zac’s death but the deaths of others connected to the case and the number of bizarre ‘suicides’ the police calmly accepted (seriously – can anyone stab themselves to death with two knives?).
The prologue is a beautifully written portrait of the River Thames, its history and character in the most poetic form. The rest of the book reads like a thriller for the most part, certainly the first half, then it becomes the tragic story that it is, the failings of the judicial system, the failings of families to know their children, and the failings of truth. Everyone is living in some kind of made up fantasy.
A readable, poignant and fascinating book, perfectly researched and written, showing a side of London I have never experienced, nor want to.
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