The fear index

Review by New York Times Review

ALEXANDER HOFFMANN is having a very bad day. It starts in the wee hours of the morning, when he startles an intruder in his palatial home in Geneva. The man, who bypassed the security system, is determinedly sharpening the family cutlery and has brought along some bondage gear. He slams Alex over the head with a fire extinguisher and flees. Alex, a hedge fund executive with so much money that being part of the 1 percent might seem unambitious, has to go to the hospital for scans and stitches. Things go downhill from there: the day includes a rift in Alex's marriage, a frantic scramble in the financial markets and mayhem. Lots and lots of mayhem. Behind it all is a sense that everything has been orchestrated, seemingly by Alex himself. But who is really pushing the buttons? "The Fear Index," the latest novel by Robert Harris, gives a clue in the epigraph that opens the first chapter. It's a line from Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein": "Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge." Among other things, this warns us that Harris, who has given his readers thrillers and historical novels that include "The Ghost," "Fatherland," "Enigma" and "Pompeii," is reaching back to another literary form: Gothic horror. This version of "Golems Gone Wild," however, has a high-tech twist. Alexander Hoffmann is no white-coated mad scientist, but a "quant," a computer boffin who has transferred his research from CERN, the Swiss laboratory that developed the World Wide Web and the Large Hadron Collider, to the world of arbitrage. Alex's brainchild is - cue the scary music - a hedge fund. He has built it with a team of top scientists, selected for technical brilliance above all other traits. As Harris puts it, "Nationality did not matter and nor did social skills, with the result that Hoffmann's payroll occasionally resembled a United Nations conference on Asperger's syndrome." Alex and his fellow quants constitute that beloved tent pole of horror: the scientist who knows not the moral implications of his work. What's more frightening than a geek with power? The investment firm has a slogan worthy of Enron: "The company of the future has arrived." Its profits, however, are bigger than Bernie Madoff would ever have dared to fake: an improbable 83 percent return over two and a half years, while the markets were fretful and sinking by a quarter of their value. That, in fact, is the idea of the fund: its algorithms, Hoffmann explains, "thrive on panic," detecting fear in the markets and placing financial bets at superhuman speed. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty, naturally. During the day described in the book, Harris shows us that this "cloud computing" tech executives keep yammering about could turn out to be a mushroom cloud. As Alex unravels the mystery of predatory capitalism gone viral, the author revels in digressions on the operation of financial markets and Darwin's theory of natural selection, in which "old forms will be supplanted by new and improved forms." Harris has done his homework on both, lifting several chilling quotations from Darwin and details of a one-day market panic from government reports on the real "flash crash" in May 2010. Harris even goes for a touch of geek cred, showing us the first server for the World Wide Web: a NeXT cube computer used by Tim Berners-Lee and still on display at CERN, with a label on the case reading, "This machine is a server - do not power it down!" (The novel shortens this to "DO NOT POWER DOWN," but let's not quibble.) Harris seems to be saying there was a time we might have called the whole thing off by pulling the plug on a single machine. Of course, the Internet long predated the Web. But again, let's not quibble. This is creepy fun. REALITY? Less fun. The book arrives in the years after a financial meltdown caused in part by Wall Street hubris. Hoffmann's partner talks about the days of trading collateralized debt obligations, the instruments that played such a big part in the crisis. Harris is not coy about his feelings toward these giants of capitalism. His billionaires make money while seeming to make nothing else of value. The fund offices strike one character as a "seminary of Mammon," while another says "high-end science and money don't mix" and talks of "dark arts." Harris's novel also comes to us as Mitt Romney, a co-founder of a private equity firm, is vying to become the nation's chief executive. Romney has said, "Corporations are people, my friend." He meant, of course, that business entities are made up of people and pay their wages. But the sentiment sounds ominous to those who fear the expanding power of corporations in politics and policy. After reading "The Fear Index," it could seem darker still. Humans have emerged as the top predators of the biosphere, but Harris warns that a new life form, brilliant and brutal, could be emerging from our algorithms, silicon chips and fiber-optic lines. Corporations aren't people, he tells us, but they will be alive. Will we survive the rise of the machines? Lovers of the "Terminator" and "Matrix" films know the answer. In evolution, as with a prospectus, past performance is no guarantee of future results. The hero's hedge fund is designed to 'thrive on panic,' detecting fear in the markets. Sounds like a foolproof plan. John Schwartz is a national correspondent and former technology reporter for The Times.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 4, 2012]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* If there's anything Harris can't write, he hasn't revealed it yet. He's equally confident with alternate history (Fatherland, 1992), ancient history (Pompeii, 2003, and the Cicero trilogy), WWII thrillers (Enigma, 1995), and contemporary intrigue (The Ghost, 2007). Now he turns in another masterful performance with this story of an artificial-intelligence researcher whose breakthrough in hedge-fund speculation seems to have led to a plot to discredit him, not to mention driving him insane. But as Dr. Alex Hoffman tries, increasingly frantically, to find out who has it in for him, we slowly begin to realize that he has no conception of just how clever the plot against him really is. In less sure hands, the story might have come off seeming either wildly implausible or just plain silly, but Harris displays a magician's talent for misdirection, focusing our attention on one thing while doing something else behind our backs. Full of sharply drawn characters and artfully revealed surprises and a big dose of paranoia the book is a first-class page-turner. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The multitalented Harris throws another bull's-eye. His built-in audience stands to grow still larger this time, fueled by strong reviews, word of mouth, and extensive marketing support.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this smart but uneven thriller on technology run amok from bestseller Harris (The Ghost Writer), Dr. Alex Hoffmann, an American scientific refugee from the abandoned Texas supercollider who lands on his feet at CERN in Geneva, eventually goes on to found one of the world's most successful hedge funds. Hoffmann's secret VIXAL-4, an artificial intelligence project that forecasts financial market movements, appears to have a mind of its own, which is more than can be said for its creator. Unbeknownst even to his English avant-garde artist wife, Hoffmann has shown signs of serious mental problems in the past. Could a series of strange occurrences in the present be random, the work of a mole in Hoffman's company, or part of his unconscious pattern of self-destruction? Pure science enjoys an uneasy existence with large profit making at the expense of downward-market spirals. Despite some less than engaging characters and a story that sags a bit, this novel's philosophical underpinnings will keep most readers engrossed. 200,000 first printing; 5-city author tour. Agent: Michael Carlisle. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Dr. Alex Hoffman, one of the world's most brilliant mathematicians, has created an algorithmic program that permits his Geneva-based hedge fund company to make obscene profits. In the course of a single day, his empire comes under attack from an unseen source that bypasses the highly secure program and slowly drives Hoffman insane. He is brutally attacked in his own home, but the Swiss police officer investigating the crime begins having suspicions about the victim's claims. No matter what actions Hoffman takes, the assailant always is one step ahead. Harris has created a financial world far beyond what most readers will understand, but the tension and suspense are just as powerful as the often-confusing stock market jargon. VERDICT British reader Christian Rodska does a great job presenting the slow disintegration of Hoffman's seemingly untouchable life, and readers won't be disappointed in the breathtaking sequence of events that culminates in a startling climax. Highly recommended for all public libraries. ["Get ready to enjoy a brilliant integration of fascinating research, compelling themes, and vivid characterization," read the review of the New York Times best-selling Knopf hc, LJ 1/12; the Arrow: Random mass-market pb will publish in June 2012.-Ed.]-Joseph L. Carlson, Vandenberg Air Force Base Lib., Lompoc, CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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1 Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow. --Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818) Dr. Alexander Hoffmann sat by the fire in his study in Geneva, a half-smoked cigar lying cold in the ashtray beside him, an anglepoise lamp pulled low over his shoulder, turning the pages of a first edition of The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin. The Victorian grandfather clock in the hall was striking midnight but Hoffmann did not hear it. Nor did he notice that the fire was almost out. All his formidable powers of attention were directed onto his book. He knew it had been published in London in 1872 by John Murray & Co. in an edition of seven thousand copies, printed in two runs. He knew also that the second run had introduced a ­misprint--"htat"--on page 208. As the volume in his hands contained no such error, he presumed it must have come from the first run, thus greatly increasing its value. He turned it round and inspected the spine. The binding was in the original green cloth with gilt lettering, the spine-ends only slightly frayed. It was what was known in the book trade as "a fine copy," worth perhaps $15,000. He had found it waiting for him when he returned home from his office that evening, as soon as the New York markets had closed, a little after ten o'clock. Yet the strange thing was, even though he collected scientific first editions and had browsed the book online and had in fact been meaning to buy it, he had not actually ordered it. His immediate thought had been that it must have come from his wife, but she had denied it. He had refused to believe her at first, following her around the kitchen as she set the table, holding out the book for her inspection. "You're really telling me you didn't buy it for me?" "Yes, Alex. Sorry. It wasn't me. What can I say? Perhaps you have a secret admirer." "You are totally sure about this? It's not our anniversary or anything? I haven't forgotten to give you something?" "For God's sake, I didn't buy it, okay?" It had come with no message apart from a Dutch bookseller's slip: "Rosengaarden & Nijenhuise, Antiquarian Scientific & Medical Books. Established 1911. Prinsengracht 227, 1016 HN Amsterdam, The Netherlands." Hoffmann had pressed the pedal on the waste bin and retrieved the bubble wrap and thick brown paper. The parcel was correctly addressed, with a printed label: "Dr. Alex- ander Hoffmann, Villa Clairmont, 79 Chemin de Ruth, 1223 Col­ogny, Geneva, Switzerland." It had been dispatched by courier from Amsterdam the previous day. After they had eaten their supper--a fish pie and green salad prepared by the housekeeper before she went home--Gabrielle had stayed in the kitchen to make a few anxious last-minute phone calls about her exhibition the next day, while Hoffmann had retreated to his study clutching the mysterious book. An hour later, when she put her head round the door to tell him she was going up to bed, he was still reading. She said, "Try not to be too late, darling. I'll wait up for you." He did not reply. She paused in the doorway and considered him for a moment. He still looked young for forty-two, and had always been more handsome than he realised--a quality she found attractive in a man as well as rare. It was not that he was modest, she had come to realise. On the contrary: he was supremely indifferent to anything that did not engage him intellectually, a trait that had earned him a reputation among her friends for being downright bloody rude--and she quite liked that as well. His preternaturally boyish American face was bent over the book, his spectacles pushed up and resting on the top of his thick head of light brown hair; catching the firelight, the lenses seemed to flash a warning look back at her. She knew better than to try to interrupt him. She sighed and went upstairs. Hoffmann had known for years that The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was one of the first books to be published with photographs, but he had never actually seen them before. Monochrome plates depicted Victorian artists' models and inmates of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum in various states of emotion--grief, despair, joy, defiance, terror--for this was meant to be a study of Homo sapiens as animal, with an animal's instinctive responses, stripped of the mask of social graces. Born far enough into the age of science to be photographed, their misaligned eyes and skewed teeth nonetheless gave them the look of crafty, superstitious peasants from the Middle Ages. They reminded Hoffmann of a childish nightmare--of grown-ups from an old-fashioned book of fairy tales who might come and steal you from your bed in the night and carry you off into the woods. And there was another thing that unsettled him. The bookseller's slip had been inserted into the pages devoted to the emotion of fear, as if the sender specifically intended to draw them to his attention: The frightened man at first stands like a statue motionless or breathless, or crouches down as if instinctively to escape observation. The heart beats quickly and violently, so that it palpitates or knocks against the ribs . . . Hoffmann had a habit when he was thinking of cocking his head to one side and gazing into the middle distance, and he did so now. Was this a coincidence? Yes, he reasoned, it must be. On the other hand, the physiological effects of fear were so directly relevant to VIXAL-4, the project he was presently involved in, that it did strike him as peculiarly pointed. And yet VIXAL-4 was highly secret, known only to his research team, and although he took care to pay them well--$250,000 was the starting salary, with much more on offer in bonuses--it was surely unlikely any of them would have spent $15,000 on an anonymous gift. One person who certainly could afford it, who knew all about the project and who would have seen the joke of it--if that was what this was: an expensive joke--was his business partner, Hugo Quarry, and Hoffmann, without even thinking about the hour, rang him. "Hello, Alex. How's it going?" If Quarry saw anything strange in being disturbed just after midnight, his perfect manners would never have permitted him to show it. Besides, he was accustomed to the ways of Hoffmann, "the mad professor," as he called him--and called him it to his face as well as behind his back, it being part of his charm always to speak to everyone in the same way, public or private. Hoffmann, still reading the description of fear, said distractedly, "Oh, hi. Did you just buy me a book?" "I don't think so, old friend. Why? Was I supposed to?" "Someone's just sent me a Darwin first edition and I don't know who." "Sounds pretty valuable." "It is. I thought, because you know how important Darwin is to VIXAL, it might be you." " 'Fraid not. Could it be a client? A thank-you gift and they've forgotten to include a card? Lord knows, Alex, we've made them enough money." "Yeah, well. Maybe. Okay. Sorry to bother you." "Don't worry. See you in the morning. Big day tomorrow. In fact, it's already tomorrow. You ought to be in bed by now." "Sure. On my way. Night." As fear rises to an extreme pitch, the dreadful scream of terror is heard. Great beads of sweat stand on the skin. All the muscles of the body are relaxed. Utter prostration soon follows, and the mental powers fail. The intestines are affected. The sphincter muscles cease to act, and no longer retain the contents of the body . . . Hoffmann held the volume to his nose and inhaled. A compound of leather and library dust and cigar smoke, so sharp he could taste it, with a faint hint of something chemical--­formaldehyde, perhaps, or coal gas. It put him in mind of a nineteenth-century laboratory or lecture theatre, and for an instant he saw Bunsen burners on wooden benches, flasks of acid and the skeleton of an ape. He reinserted the bookseller's slip to mark the page and carefully closed the book. Then he carried it over to the shelves and with two fingers gently made room for it between a first edition of On the Origin of Species , which he had bought at auction at Sotheby's in New York for $125,000, and a leather-bound copy of The Descent of Man that had once belonged to T. H. Huxley. Later, he would try to remember the exact sequence of what he did next. He consulted the Bloomberg terminal on his desk for the final prices in the United States: the Dow Jones, the S&P 500 and the ­NASDAQ had all ended down. He had an email exchange with Susumu Takahashi, the duty dealer in charge of execution on VIXAL-4 overnight, who reported that everything was functioning smoothly, and reminded him that the Tokyo Stock Exchange would reopen in less than two hours' time following the annual three-day Golden Week holiday. It would certainly open down, to catch up with what had been a week of falling prices in Europe and the United States. And there was one other thing: VIXAL was proposing to short another three million shares in Procter & Gamble at $62 a share, which would bring their overall position up to six million--a big trade: would Hoffmann approve it? Hoffmann emailed "OK," threw away his unfinished cigar, put a fine-meshed metal guard in front of the fireplace and switched off the study lights. In the hall he checked to see that the front door was locked and then set the burglar alarm with its four-digit code: 1729. (The numerals came from an exchange between the mathematicians G. H. Hardy and S. I. Ramanujan in 1920, when Hardy went in a taxi cab with that number to visit his dying colleague in hospital and com­­plained it was "a rather dull number," to which Ramanujan responded: "No, Hardy! No, Hardy! It is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.") He left just one lamp lit downstairs--of that he was sure--then climbed the curved white marble staircase to the bathroom. He took off his spectacles, undressed, washed, brushed his teeth and put on a pair of blue silk pyjamas. He set the alarm on his mobile for six thirty, registering as he did so that the time was then twenty past twelve. In the bedroom he was surprised to find Gabrielle still awake, lying on her back on the counterpane in a black silk kimono. A scented candle flickered on the dressing table; otherwise the room was in darkness. Her hands were clasped behind her head, her elbows sharply pointed away from her, her legs crossed at the knee. One slim white foot, the toenails painted dark red, was making impatient circles in the fragrant air. "Oh God," he said. "I'd forgotten the date." "Don't worry." She untied her belt and parted the silk, then held out her arms to him. "I never forget it." Excerpted from The Fear Index by Robert Harris All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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