London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth

Patrick Radden Keefe has built a reputation for narrative nonfiction that reads like fiction—Say Nothing and Empire of Pain both showed what forensic research combined with a storyteller’s instincts can produce. London Falling applies the same approach to a death in gilded-age London, following the family’s years-long fight to get at the truth behind it. The book works on two levels simultaneously: it’s a mystery at its core, with the pleasure of watching evidence accumulate toward an answer, but it’s also a portrait of Victorian society—how class, gender, and money determined who got justice and who didn’t. At 592 pages, it’s a substantial read, but Keefe earns every page. Readers who loved The Wager or Devil in the White City will find this immediately familiar in the best sense.