Memoir Monday... A "Memory" of a Mysterious Death and the Search for Truth

London Fallng: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search For Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe... In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river.

In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend for the weekend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: Her son was dead.In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji and a murderous gangster known as Indian Dave. As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers’ quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private nightclubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.

This isn't a memoir, but a true crime novel with an interesting twist that Zac Ismailov had a kind of secret life, with him posing as the son of a Russian oligarch! That sounded so interesting to me. I love a good mystery and this certainly falls under that category. 

This book was published by Doubleday in early April of this year, so it is available at your favorite bookstore! And it is on my TBR list now!

P.S. This cover is actually from the UK version of the book ( I like it better and actually ordered my copy from the UK so I could have this cover of the book.)

The Sunday Salon... Reading Travels and Destinations!

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! It's the day of the week where we get together and chat about books! Pull up a chair, grab a cup of joe and relax!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I was away enjoying the warm weather and the great hospitality of North Carolina. Which brought to mind today's Sunday Salon- traveling and destination. When we travel, we always have a destination, so I've got a couple of great "Travel" books and a true crime book written about where my destination was this week!

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck... In the 1960's, 58-year-old John Steinbeck gets in his truck and goes off in an adventure with his standard poodle, Charley. He wanted to explore the American landscape he had written about for so long. This has been on my "to read" list for some time, and when thinking about my recent travels I decided it was high time to crack the spine and see what Steinbeck discovered.

As he talked with all kinds of people, he sadly noted the passing of region speech, fell in love with Montana, and was appalled by racism in New Orleans.

Were there any similarities as I left Connecticut for the great unknown? I did learn that Y'all is a word!

The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger... I fell in love with this novel the moment I started reading it! If you are a true romantic, there is nothing more special that the love story between Henry and Claire.

When Henry meets Clare, he is twenty-eight and she is twenty. Henry has never met Clare before; Clare has known Henry since she was six. Impossible but true, because Henry finds himself periodically displaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. Henry and Clare's attempts to live normal lives are threatened by a force they can neither prevent nor control, making their passionate love story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. The Time Traveler's Wife is a story of fate, hope and belief, and more than that, it's about the power of love to endure beyond the bounds of time.

A love story that isn't bound by the rigors of time, and wonderful heartfelt writing, make this a great read! If you haven't read it, DO IT NOW! Definitely part of my travels this past week.

Bitter Blood: : A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder by Jerry Bledsoe... Now we come to my destination - Greensboro, North Carolina, and my last book pick of today. Bitter Blood still evokes a response from people living in Greensboro, who unwittingly became part of a bizarre and horrifying series of murders.

The first bodies found were those of a feisty millionaire widow and her beautiful daughter in their posh Louisville, Kentucky, home. Months later, another wealthy widow and her prominent son and daughter-in-law were found savagely slain in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Mystified police first suspected a professional in the bizarre gangland-style killings that shattered the quiet tranquility of two well-to-do southern communities. But soon a suspicion grew that turned their focus to family. The Sharps. The Newsoms. The Lynches. The only link between the three families was a beautiful and aristocratic young mother named Susie Sharp Newsom Lynch. Could this former child "princess" and fraternity sweetheart have committed such barbarous crimes? And what about her gun-loving first cousin and lover, Fritz Klenner, son of a nationally renowned doctor?

Everyone who I have talked to about this book says it is an amazing page turner and not to be missed by any true crime reader! Mesmerizing, haunting and riveting are some of the comments I have heard about Bitter Blood and the writing of Jerry Bledsoe. I'm toting this one around in my pocketbook with a fast moving bookmark!

What have you been reading this week? Did you have any bookish travels for Thanksgiving? Although I didn't have time to read too much while flying down to North Carolina, I did discover some great reads!

Happy reading... Suzanne