I'm not sure why I keep reading Robert Harris. Apart from The Ghost I tend to get frustrated by his books. They're super-efficient at getting you turning the pages. They contain some fairly erudite information about the chosen theme - be it the destruction of Pompeii and Roman aquaduct building, or - in this case - how hedge funds work, but the characters have no depth.
The fear index of the title actually exists, it's the nickname for a measure of expected stock market volatility for the next 30 days. In the book a brilliant mathematician has developed this several stages further, using artificial intelligence to calculate emotional reactions to news and thereby to predict movements in the markets and make billions of pounds.
But then the machines, using their artificial intelligence start to take over and our mathematician friend gets caught up in a Frankenstein-style nightmare. And it all gets a bit silly.
No comments:
Post a Comment