London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
One of my favorite writers and authors and one of the best investigative journalists of our time is at it again with London Falling, which looks at the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death (suicide?) of a London teenager in the late 2010’s, the role that Russian oligarchs, second-class criminals, the dark and dirty London underworld, social media, and incompetent police investigators may or may not have played in his death, and the gut-wrenching first-hand perspectives of his immediate family members, who were simply trying to find out what happened on the fateful day when Zac Brettler was found face down floating in the river Thames. Radden Keefe is the author of two of my all-time favorite books, Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, and London Falling doesn’t have the same level of historical narrative as those two recent classics, but it does paint a very broad picture of the power and influence Russian oligarchs have in and around the city of London, how their money is intertwined with the British economy, private schools, nightclubs, real estate, and political figures, and if and when a “mysterious” death happens that may or may not involve shady figures that may or may not have ties to big-time Russian influence, Scotland Yard and other police detectives tend to look the other way, sometimes out of negligence and neglect, but also because they may fear for their own lives if they get too close to the truth. At its heart, however, London Falling is the story of Zac Brettler’s parents, Rochelle and Matthew, who are trying to find out what happened to their youngest son, and because of all these troubling circumstances and frustrating dead-ends, are left with only more questions that will probably never be answered.
between 1960 and 1980, nearly all of London’s docks shut down and a whole commercial sector that had sustained the region virtually disappeared
suddenly London had clean air
reinventing itself as a financial capital
London was an attractive second home for “potentates, monarchs, chiefs, sultans, diplomats”
value of a property, the higher the price, the greater the chance it was empty
ghost mansions
October 1986, Thatcher deregulated the banking industry
“Big Bang” as it became known
greatest wave of construction London had ever seen
second half of the 80s, London underwent a stark evolution in a short period of time
has been a hospitable destination for foreign money for centuries
dissolution of the USSR in 1991 sparked one of the most dramatic wealth transfers in the history of the world, rapidly privatized
oligarchs came, lucrative opportunity for London
in 2008, UK introduced a new visa program in which foreign nationals who were willing to invest millions of pounds in the local economy could effectively buy status as a permanent legal residents
three thousand people took advantage, 3B into the British economy
private schools started actively recruiting the children of oligarchs
part of what made London so attractive for affluent internationals is nom-dom status, a legal fiction, where you could be a resident of Britain but not “domiciled” there for tax purposes
useful in helping British aristocrats to avoid being taxed on money they made in colonies
now it was mostly taken advantage of by people who lived and worked in London but claimed to be domiciled elsewhere, and thus paid no taxes in England on any income or capital gains ostensibly made outside the UK
in the Thames, every year, thirty or so ides are retrieved from its waters
for centuries, the river has been a preferred dumping ground for the corpses of people who have died violently
great majority of deaths in the Thames are suicides
during moments of high trauma, people sometimes enter a dissociative state in which it’s still possible to access ordinary emotions but not to cope with the extraordinary ones
“grass” is a slang word meaning police informer
when Idi Amin took power, Uganda’s tiny Asian minority, roughly 80K people in a country of more than 10M, controlled 90 percent of the economy
now they had ninety days to leave
everything that remained in Uganda would be expropriated by the state, Amin decreed
in three months, nearly the entire Asian population left
approximately 28K people of the expelled Ugandan Asians ended up resettling in Britain
influx of tens of thousands of Asian immigrants from a former African colony happened to coincide with a moment of intensifying anti-immigrant hysteria in Britain
physically assaulting Asian people became a kind of recreational sport
David Cameron would observe that the Ugandan Asians who resettled in the United Kingdom turned out to be “one of the most successful groups of immigrants anywhere in the history of the world”
everybody lies
scholars known as “deception scientists” have studied the psychology of lying and concluded that as a human behavior, it is incredibly common
average person lies at least once or twice a day
may be an underestimate, usually depends on self reporting by objects, and when people answer questions about how often they lie, they might very well be lying
compassion can be a shortcut to intimacy
empathic people will make themselves emotionally available to a stranger who seems to be suffering
chemical known as MDMA originally synthesized in 1912 by the German pharma companie, Merck
had been searching for a drug that would cause blood to clot
mid 80s, another use had been discovered as a party drug
MDMA was rebranded, Ecstasy
rave culture was born on the margins of social life in Britain, with unlicensed parties in underground clubs and abandoned warehouses, where young people danced all night, fueled by acid house music and MDMA
there were fewer banks
rise of ATMs, eventually of online banking, thousands of bank branches closed
decline of the bank theft industry meant that the next generation of up and coming London criminals would be forced to seek out their fortunes elsewhere, and many turned their attention to the rave scene
odd paradox of a career in the underworld: the more widely you are known for horrific violence, the less you will be obliged to use it
if your chief racket is extortion, a credible threat is the most efficient method of doing business
under British criminal justice rules, even the most violent offenders often serve only half their sentences
London is easy to forget that much of it was built on imperial plunder
one by one, people who had consorted with or crossed powerful Russian interests were dying under mysterious circumstances on British soil
2017, Buzzfeed, identifying fourteen men who all died suspiciously on British soil after making powerful enemies in Russia
institutional culture of timidity in English police departments, which, after decades of budget cuts, greeted any hint of international intrigue by simply declaring themselves outmatched
Scotland Yard was severely underfunded
half of the police stations in England had been shut down since 2010, and some 20K officers had been let go
Britain had become so reliant on the largesse of Russia’s oligarchs that decisions had been made a high level not to persecute London’s new mafia class, and to instead extend to them the courtesy of being able to kill their enemies in England with impunity
Britain had become the biggest investor in Russia’s energy sector
the killing continued
citizens in Putin era Russia became acculturated to a certain “dissonance” in day to day life
coud no longer trust that a suicide or an overdose or a heart attack or a fall was really what it appeared to be
“fog of ambiguity”
could hang over a whole society, as thick and impenetrable as the smog that once hung over the Thames
“line”, a phone used for drug sales, which meant access to a lucrative customer base
February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine
fresh scrutiny of the role that post Soviet oligarchs and their money had played in London in recent decades
indirect complicity of English individuals and institutions that had come to rely on the largesse of Putin’s cronies
well established maxim of law enforcement that the first 24 hours of any homicide investigation are the most important
cops sometimes refer to this period as the “golden hour”, and after even a single day elapses, the likelihood of solving a murder starts to diminish
“foul play has flourished” in Britain
the nation’s global reputation for financial integrity was being squandered
the notion that London’s richest residents might have to pay taxes like everybody else caused something of a panic, with dire warnings of a “wealth exodus”
if the media is not in a position to provide reliable contemporaneous accounts of court proceedings, then UK courts should start preserving these records and making them more accessible