Rating

★★★★★

Category

non-fiction

Read

2026-09-23

Pages

361

Outrageous story tracing the mystery of a young man’s suspicous death, also covering the rise of Russian influence and other corruption in London. Twists and turns better than any fiction.

In 1994, Russians made up only 3 per cent of the foreign students in British private schools; within five years that number had jumped to 20 per cent. ‘I want my children to go to school in England,’ Roman Abramovich remarked in 2003. ‘I’m satisfied they will get the best education in the world.’ Private schools started actively recruiting the children of oligarchs. In 1994, an administrator who oversaw some of this recruitment told The Guardian, in a moment of impolitic candour, ‘We don’t screen the mafia out because you can’t. You don’t know where the money is coming from.

Aside about an unimportant minor character:

He published a coffee table book called The Best of Friends, which featured photos of warm interactions between humans and wild animals, and he once said of his own children, ‘I’d rather leave them with gorillas than with a social worker.’ Five of his assistants were killed over the years, trampled by elephants or mauled by tigers. A young boy had his arm ripped off by a chimpanzee.