Spider Network

Listed as an FT book of the month Anyone with an interest in financial services and in what has gone wrong will find The Spider Network compelling. - Daniel Finkelstein, The Times Will snare you in its web of deceit, lies, corruption, manipulation and colourful characters. [a] brilliant investigative expos - Harlan Coben, bestselling thriller author A gripping narrative ... impressive reporting and writing chops are on full display ... reads like a fast-paced John le Carr thriller, and never lets up - New York Times book review A feat of reporting, and much of it reads like a novel - Leigh Gallagher, Washington Post A model of investigative financial writing... a more satisfying read than THE BIG SHORT by Michael Lewis - Literary Review Remarkable , Sunday Times Jaw-dropping , Financial TimesIn 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated administrators, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it fractions of a percent to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that included a prickly French trader nicknamed Gollum , the broker Abbo, who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking, a nervous Kazakh chicken farmer known as Derka Derka , a broker known as Village (short for Village Idiot ) who racked up huge expense account bills, an executive called Clumpy because of his patchwork hair loss, and a broker uncreatively nicknamed Big Nose who had once been a semi-professional boxer. This group generated incredible riches until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.With exclusive access to key characters and evidence, The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but also a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout.