The text examines the history of Matthew Brettler’s father, Benny Brettler, a Holocaust survivor who escaped Nazi Germany alone as a teenager. Benny’s post-war efforts to seek justice for his murdered family and reclaim their stolen property provided a powerful precedent for his son’s own quest for answers about Zac. In February 2024, Keefe published his article on Zac’s death in The New Yorker, which generated significant media attention in the United Kingdom and put public pressure on the Metropolitan Police, or the Met. The police issued a statement expressing condolences but maintained that all lines of inquiry had been exhausted.

Keefe’s investigation, however, revealed numerous loose ends. The apartment where the gangster Verinder died was owned by a Saudi princess through an offshore company, and its ownership was hastily concealed after the article appeared. Keefe spoke with Nick Gold, the businessman who had been paying Sharma’s rent. Gold described Sharma as a dangerous extortionist who had become a drug addict and insisted Sharma had died by suicide. Meanwhile, the Brettlers learned that the Met, after losing Zac’s phone and iPad for years, had returned them in a state that was still password-protected and had been rendered inaccessible by their own careless handling.

The police then made a critical mistake. They accidentally sent Matthew an Excel file containing the GPS data from a “black box” in the rental Mercedes that Akbar had been driving on the night of Zac’s death. With the help of a journalist, the Brettlers analyzed the data and made a shocking discovery. The GPS log revealed that after leaving Zac at the Riverwalk apartment, Akbar had not driven home as he claimed. Instead, he had loitered nearby, driving in circles for nearly an hour. After receiving a phone call from Sharma, who was inside with Zac, Akbar had suddenly sped back to the building, arriving just seconds before Zac went over the balcony. This evidence flatly contradicted Akbar’s testimony and strongly suggested he knew something terrible was about to happen.

The theme of secret lives is explored through the family history of Rachelle Brettler, whose father was the celebrated rabbi and Holocaust survivor Hugo Gryn. The chapter reveals that Gryn had a secret second family, including a daughter named Ester. Gryn publicly denied the tabloid reports, but his children eventually learned the truth. They later formed a relationship with their half-sister, who died by suicide in 2006. Rachelle reflected on the painful parallel of having a father and a son who both led double lives, wondering if her own “lack of questioning” had enabled their deceptions.

In the wake of Keefe’s article, the Brettlers’ private tragedy became a sensational public story, and one journalist even posted a photo of Zac’s dead body on social media before being persuaded to take it down. Rachelle took Keefe to Zac’s former boarding school and to his grave, which lay next to his grandfather Hugo Gryn’s. Zac’s story is situated within the broader context of London’s transformation into a global hub for corrupt, often Russian, money—a culture that prized wealth and appearance above all else. Keefe connects this environment to the psychological pressures on modern adolescents, citing the “digital undertow” of social media. He recounts how his own Instagram feed, guided by algorithms, began showing him an endless stream of videos of people falling from great heights while he was investigating the case, giving him a chilling insight into how digital technology may have fueled Zac’s dangerous obsession with wealth.

Keefe connected with a former associate of Verinder, who revealed that Verinder’s preferred method of intimidation was to theatrically heat a knife blade to terrorize his victims. This information cast a sinister new light on Akbar’s text about “heating up knives” and Zac’s last-minute internet search for treating skin burns. When Keefe confronted Akbar with this information, he received no reply. Keefe also pursued the theory that Sharma had been a police informant, which would explain his long, unchecked criminal career. A retired detective initially confirmed that an “Indian Dave” was a known informant for a corrupt officer, but he later retracted the statement.

In April 2024, the Brettlers attended the virtual inquest for Sharma’s death. They learned that Sharma had attempted suicide with a drug overdose on the one-year anniversary of Zac’s death, telling paramedics he was stressed from helping police with a murder inquiry. A few weeks later, he died from an overdose. The coroner ruled it a suicide. Andy Baker, one of Sharma’s former gangster associates, told Keefe that Sharma, whose criminal prowess was declining, would have been “hugely embarrassed” by being conned by a teenager and likely threatened Zac with extreme violence, leading the boy to jump from the balcony in a desperate act of escape.

In the aftermath of the publicity, Akbar’s life reportedly fell apart; he lost his job, his partner left him, and he was rumored to have fled London. Matthew felt that Akbar was now living in his “own little prison.” The Brettlers, drawing strength from the resilience of their Holocaust-survivor fathers, resolved to “choose life” despite their grief. The book concludes that the most plausible explanation for Zac’s death was that his imposture was discovered, leaving him trapped with a violent gangster from whom his only escape was to leap from the balcony.