London Falling
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. His parents, Matthew and Rachelle Brettler, learned days later that their son Zac was dead. As they set about investigating what had happened to him, 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. In a mesmerizing talk, Patrick Radden Keefe discusses London Falling, his #1 New York Times bestselling book about Zac Brettler, his family, and the seedy truths hidden behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private nightclubs.

SAY NOTHING: The True Story Behind the Hit Hulu Series, and the Ethics of Political Violence
In this captivating talk, Patrick Radden Keefe relates the challenges of bringing his bestselling non-fiction book Say Nothing : A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (which The New York Times named one of the 20 Best Books of the 21st Century) to the screen, in the celebrated FX series Say Nothing, released on Hulu in 2024. At a moment when political violence is in the headlines, from the war in Gaza to the killing of a CEO, Say Nothing explores complicated and pressing questions about the uses of political violence through the story of Dolours Price, who joined the IRA in Northern Ireland when she was barely out of her teens, in the early 1970s, and took up arms against the British state. She bombed London, was thrown in prison, and nearly died on a hunger strike. Later in life, after a 1998 peace agreement finally brought an end to the Troubles, she looked back on the choices she had made in her youth with some misgivings. Keefe asks us to contemplate who should be held accountable for a shared history of violence, a question that continues to be urgent today.

The Power of Narrative
According to the Los Angeles Times, “A new book by Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you’ll be turning the pages for hours.” In this wide-ranging, personal talk, Keefe discusses the importance of storytelling: why we love it, and how to do it well. Humans are hard-wired to process complex information more effectively when it is presented as a narrative—a drama about characters and conflict. With revealing anecdotes about his adventures as an investigative reporter, writing about everyone from the narco baron Chapo Guzman to the mega art dealer Larry Gagosian to the late chef and television host Anthony Bourdain, Keefe makes an impassioned case for the importance of knowing how to tell a good story, whatever industry you might be in. He describes how he sorts through years of research, hundreds of pages of interview notes, and thousands of court files in search of the narrative threads to spin all that material into a great yarn. The fundamental questions at the heart of this kind of writing (Where does my story begin and end? How much detail is too much? What are my inflection points and themes?) are the same faced by anyone who has to write a memo, or deliver a presentation, or give a speech at a wedding. Keefe imparts five simple lessons he has learned over a two-decade career about how to structure and sustain an irresistible tale.

Empire of Pain: Uncovering the Secrets of the Sackler Family
Drawing on his definitive work of narrative reporting, Keefe shares the secret history of the Sacklers, a prominent philanthropic dynasty and one of the wealthiest families in the world, whose fortune was built on Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin—the highly addictive painkiller that helped precipitate the opioid crisis. In this talk, Keefe tells a sweeping story, tracing three generations of the Sackler family, from immigrant Brooklyn during the Great Depression to the 1990s, when OxyContin started generating billions of dollars a year, to their ultimate downfall, when Purdue Pharma was dissolved in bankruptcy and the Sacklers became pariahs and their name was stripped from the walls of prominent institutions, from Oxford University to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Filled with arresting behind-the-scenes details and enlivened by Keefe’s deadpan wit, this talk explores the way in which greed and arrogance caused a family and its company to lose their way, with devastating results.

Bad Company: Business Ethics in the Era of Corporate Impunity
Patrick Radden Keefe has always been interested in the business models of criminal enterprises; he once wrote a cover story for The New York Times Magazine that was basically a Harvard Business School case study of a Mexican drug cartel. But he has also written extensively about legitimate corporations that commit crimes: a major hedge fund awash in insider trading, a global bank that did business with drug cartels, a pharmaceutical company that lied about the dangers of its blockbuster drug. In this talk, Keefe discusses the surprising affinities between crooks who act like businesspeople and businesspeople who act like crooks. He relates entertaining anecdotes about his experiences interviewing drug barons, whistleblowers, and CEOs, and illustrates the importance of ethical leadership and institutional culture in spotting red flags and keeping companies on the right side of the line. The least dull compliance lecture you will ever attend.

Rogues
In 2022, Patrick Radden Keefe published Rogues, a New York Times bestselling greatest hits collection covering 15 years of his magazine writing, which has been recognized with a National Magazine Award. In this talk, Keefe reveals that ever since he was a kid, his dream was to write for The New Yorker. He relates the circuitous route he had to take before finally ending up at the magazine, and recounts some of the more bizarre and memorable moments of his career, from the time the drug lord Chapo Guzman asked if Keefe would ghostwrite his memoir, to the trip he took to Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, to his intense encounters with the parents of the mass shooter Amy Bishop. Moving, suspenseful, and darkly funny, this talk is a reporter opening his notebook and sharing the surprising highlights of a globe-trotting career chasing great stories.

• London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth (Doubleday, 2026)
• Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (Doubleday, 2022)
• Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. (Doubleday, 2021)
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (Doubleday 2018)
• The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (Doubleday, 2009)
• Chatter: Dispatches From the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping (Random House, 2005)

Selected Articles

• The Car-Crash Conspiracy, The New Yorker
• The Oligarch’s Son, The New Yorker
• The Ventriloquist, The New Yorker
• Money on the Wall, The New Yorker
• King Josh, The New Yorker
• The Bounty Hunter, The New Yorker
• Crime Family, The New Yorker
• McMaster and Commander, The New Yorker
• Empire of Pain, The New Yorker
• Trump’s Favorite Tycoon, The New Yorker
• Total Recall, The New Yorker
• The Avenger, The New Yorker
• Assets and Liabilities, The New Yorker
• Corruption and Revolt, The New Yorker
• A Loaded Gun, The New Yorker
• Reversal of Fortune, The New Yorker
• Cocaine Incorporated, New York Times Magazine
• The Idol Thief, The New Yorker

• 2021  Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction, Empire of Pain
• 2021  Finalist, Financial Times Business Book of the Year, Empire of Pain
• 2019  National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, Say Nothing
• 2019  Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Say Nothing
• 2017  Fellowship, New America Foundation
• 2014  National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, “A Loaded Gun”
• 2012  Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
• 2006  Fellowship, Guggenheim
• 2003  Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library

• READ: Patrick Radden Keefe: Parents see their own dilemmas in London Falling tragedy, The Times (UK)
• WATCH: Patrick Radden Keefe with Sarah Jessica Parker: London Falling, The 92nd Street Y
• WATCH: Patrick Radden Keefe in conversation with Dax Shepard, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
• WATCH: New Yorker Writer Teaches the Craft of Writing, How I Write with David Perell
• WATCH: Patrick Radden Keefe, Late Night with Seth Meyers
• WATCH: London Falling Author Patrick Radden Keefe, Late Show Book Club
• READ: Patrick Radden Keefe Is Hollywood’s New Favorite Author, The Hollywood Reporter
• READ: Review of London Falling, The New York Times Book Review
• READ: Review of London Falling, Kirkus Reviews
• READ: Can a Journalist Be a Celebrity Anymore?, The New York Times
• READ: Industry’s Showrunners Quiz Patrick Radden Keefe About His New Book Set in London’s Criminal Underworld, Cultured
• READ: A24 Adapting Patrick Radden Keefe’s ‘London Falling’ About Death Of Teen Who Posed As Billionaire Son Of Russian Oligarch, Deadline
• WATCH: How to Write Captivating Stories, How I Write With David Perell
• WATCH: Patrick Radden Keefe discusses his new book, London Falling, Penguin Random House
• LISTEN: London Falling Official Audiobook, Penguin Random House Audio
• LISTEN: Author Patrick Radden Keefe talks about the making of the new series ‘Say Nothing’, NPR All Things Considered
• Celebrated New Yorker Writer Enlisted as Model, The New York Times
• Patrick Radden Keefe’s Hollywood Homecoming, Bustle