Real People/Real Stories explores the best in nonfiction history, biography, science, nature, and the arts.

This month's read: 

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth, by Patrick Radden Keefe 

Following the mysterious death of their nineteen–year-old son, a British couple are shocked to discover that he was covertly involved with a dangerous criminal organization operating in London. This true crime thriller was written by the best-selling author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain.

“Keefe, the author of some of this century’s finest nonfiction, has crafted another masterwork. This is a penetrating portrait of a young man destroyed by malignant influences given free rein in a global hub of capitalist excess. . . . Keefe might be our sharpest chronicler of the intersection of criminal opportunism and institutional fecklessness. . . . This is powerful reporting, a potential classic about the dangerous allure of a city remade as ‘a twenty-four-hour laundromat for dirty money.’ An exemplary account of naïveté, wealth, and menace, impeccably told by a top-notch journalist.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A meticulously researched propulsive thriller. . . . A feat of remarkable reportage. . . . Irresistible. . . . Keefe’s unerringly razor-sharp attention links these disparate elements of heedless ambition, uninhibited risks, and otherworldly privilege that created a powerful vacuum of want in a tenacious teen desperate for access. With empathetic insight, Keefe deftly sifts through facts and fictions to distill Zac’s young life, enthrallingly seeking the unknowable truth of his tragic death.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Another blockbuster feat of reportage. . . . I sprinted through this addictive book in three days and gasped more than once at the true story’s twists and turns.”
—Adam Morgan, Esquire