The Fear Index

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

Dr Max Hoffman is a legend.

A physicist once employed on the Large Hadron Collider, he now uses a revolutionary and highly secret system of computer algorithms to trade on the world's financial markets. None of his rivals is sure how he does it but somehow Hoffman's hedge fund - built around the standard measure of market volatility : the VIX or 'Fear Index' - generates astonishing returns for his investors.

Late one night, in his house beside Lake Geneva, an intruder disturbs Hoffman and his wife while they are asleep. This terrifying moment is the start of Robert Harris's new novel.

A story just as compelling and timely as his most recent contemporary thriller, The Ghost. Over the next 48 hours, as the markets edge towards another great crash, Hoffman's world disintegrates. But who is trying to destroy him?

About the Author

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.