'The Fear Index' by Robert Harris

The financial markets are crashing around our ears and to this end, hedge funds, such as the fictionalised one run by physics genius Alexander Hoffman in The Fear Index have sprung up to make money betting against the success of the market.

Needless to say, Hoffman is a very rich man indeed and like most rich men in thrillers, he has made a number of enemies, despite his reclusive lifestyle in the company of his wife Gabrielle.

After a brutal assault at his own home by a mystery assailant, Hoffman's life rapidly collapses as Robert Harris explores the psychological deterioration of  a man brought to ruin by his own invention - the VIXAL 500 - a computer with an algorithm  designed to make money off the failure of other companies.

The story explores the question of which of these adversaries is the greater threat to Alexander Hoffman? The computer that he has created, which threatens to wreck the company it built, or the men who are making threats on his life? In his concussed, confused state, Hoffman makes a series of  dreadful decisions that would hardly be typical of an average billionaire physics genius.

His friendship with his business partner Hugo Quarry is an example of this. He trusts Hugo utterly despite the strange, amoral world that Hugo inhabits, filled with sleazy affairs and cocaine. This slightly stretches suspension of disbelief in the book and it is unlike Harris to place such a sensational character at the centre of one of his novels.

Hoffman's relationship with his wife is strained and whilst their interplay is more credible, it relies on the notion that Gabrielle is willing to put up with an increasingly distant husband. They also seem like an unlikely match. Gabrielle is hot headed and difficult, an artist who takes impulsive decisions with the kind of disdain that only the very rich are capable of.

By contrast, Alex is listless and often silent. His social skills are minimal and whilst Robert Harris always gets Hugo to cover for him with shareholders or even with his wife, it does seem a unlikely that a man who had made quite so much money would be lacking in social graces.

Whilst all of this contributes to a functional, slow burning thriller, the novel is not as well characterised as Lustrum or Fatherland by the same author. These slightly wooden characters let down a story which is otherwise timely and well written.

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