The Fear Index

Description

His name is carefully guarded from the general public but within the secretive inner circles of the ultra-rich. Dr Alex Hoffmann is a legend - a visionary scientist whose computer software turns everything it touches into gold. Together with his partner, an investment banker, Hoffmann has developed a revolutionary form of artificial intelligence that tracks human emotions, enabling it to predict movements in the financial markets with uncanny accuracy. His hedge fund, based in Geneva, makes billions. But then in the early hours of the morning, while he lies asleep with his wife, a sinister intruder breaches the elaborate security of their lakeside house. So begins a waking nightmare of paranoia and violence as Hoffmann attempts, with increasing desperation, to discover who is trying to destroy him. His quest forces him to confront the deepest questions of what it is to be human. By the time night falls over Geneva, the financial markets will be in turmoil and Hoffmann's world - and ours - transformed forever.

Promotion info

A chilling contemporary thriller from Robert Harris set in the competitive world of high finance

Author description

Robert Harris has written seven previous novels - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, Imperium, The Ghost and Lustrum. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. For his collaboration with Roman Polanski on the film version of The Ghost, he won both the French Cesar and the European Film Awards for best adapted screenplay. A graduate of Cambridge University, where he studied English, he joined the BBC and later wrote for the Observer, the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is married to Gill Hornby. They have four children and live in a village near Hungerford in West Berkshire.