by David Enrich
First published 2017
Tom Hayes discovers something that will make him rich beyond measure. The London interbank offered rate, known as Libor, controls interest rates on trillions of dollars in global loans. A small group of administrators sets this crucial number each day, and Hayes realizes they can be influenced. The brilliant mathematician assembles an unlikely crew of financial misfits. There's a French trader called Gollum, a broker named Abbo who strips naked when drunk, and a nervous Kazakh chicken farmer known as Derka Derka. The group includes Village, short for Village Idiot, who runs up massive expense accounts, plus Clumpy with his patchy hair and Big Nose, a former boxer. Together they manipulate Libor by tiny fractions that generate enormous profits for their trading positions. The money flows in torrents as their scheme grows bolder. But greed and paranoia poison the alliance. Trust crumbles as regulators close in and the conspirators turn on each other with savage betrayals.
Genres: business, mystery, crime, thriller, 21st-century, finance
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: greed, power-dynamics, trust-issues
Setting: London
Period: 21st-century
528 pages · Hardcover · Custom House/Harper Collins