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THE FEAR INDEX

by Robert Harris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2012

Amid the welter of financial details, Harris creates a novel of tension and suspense by focusing more on the human than on...

A smart and sophisticated novel about machines becoming conscious—or about humans becoming paranoid about whether machines can become conscious.

Super-intelligent research physicist Dr. Alex Hoffmann lives with his artist wife Gabrielle in a mansion in Geneva, Switzerland. Formerly a scientist with the CERN project, Hoffmann has branched off into artificial intelligence, creating a machine called VIXAL-4, which helps the one percent become even richer by monitoring investments and making fast and nuanced predictions about market trends. Although the stock market in general languishes, VIXAL-4 clicks along at an 83 percent rate of return, so Hoffmann’s business partner, Hugo Quarry, who’s more adept with human interaction than the reclusive Hoffmann, lines up some billionaire angels for investment possibilities…and that’s where things begin to go wrong. First, an intruder breaks into the Hoffmanns’ house, breaching an impressive and expensive security system that had recently been installed. Then, at the opening reception for Gabrielle’s first show, someone buys up every one of her works. Could it be the intruder? Is someone toying with Hoffmann, sending him a message that his life is not as secure as he thinks? Hoffmann tracks down and kills a man he believes is trying to kill him, and VIXAL-4 starts doing untoward things, making financial decisions that seem to be independent of any human control. When Hoffmann discovers a camera hidden in his smoke detector, he starts to suspect that Genoud, the man who had installed the security system, might be out to get him, so he takes off on the lam, becoming ever more irrational and out of control.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-307-95793-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011

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by Robert Harris

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection , 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER

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by Kathy Reichs

DARK MATTER

by Blake Crouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016

Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.

A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.

Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.

Pub Date: July 26, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION | THRILLER | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION | TECHNICAL & MEDICAL THRILLER

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by Blake Crouch

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The Fear Index by Robert Harris – review

P ost-financial crisis, it was only a matter of time before Robert Harris introduced a new set of bad guys. We had Nazis in Fatherland , corrupt Roman politicians in Pompeii and, closer to home, a barely disguised Tony Blair-like figure in Ghost . In The Fear Index , Harris's latest thriller – which he is already adapting for film, to be directed by Paul Greengrass – we are cast into the dystopic world of finance where nerdy hedge fund managers and their computers may be the modern embodiment of evil. Perhaps Harris has been reading too much Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, as he gives the impression of believing that financial markets are one step away from some kind of twisted final stage of evolution.

The hero of The Fear Index is a brilliant physicist called Dr Alex Hoffman. Frustrated by a thankless research job at Cern's Large Hadron Collider , Hoffman teams up with a suave investment banker to create a hedge fund on the banks of Lake Geneva. The hedge fund makes decisions based not on human interaction but on predictions derived from a complex computer programme.

And for a long time, the computer can do no wrong. Hoffman is soon living a life of empty luxury in Geneva: he estimates his personal wealth to be "one billion, ballpark", he lives in a $60m lakeside house, and is married to Gabrielle, a beautiful artist. Then an intruder breaks into Hoffman's home and assaults him, injuring his head. This sets in motion a spiral of paranoia and violence that leaves our hero questioning the cause of it all.

As it happens, I know something about computer-driven funds as the firm I work for – the Man Group – has one of the oldest and most successful trend-following systems. Historically, momentum has proven to be a worthwhile strategy. In short, it doesn't matter if the dollar or the Dow Jones move up or down, but rather that one captures a "trend". And yes, just as in Harris's book, we employ many PhD graduates to analyse data and identify trends to build investment portfolios. These strategies have proven popular as they tend to do quite well in very difficult markets, such as in 2008.

But Harris has produced an interesting twist. Hoffman's computer programme tries to leave the world of probability behind by predicting fear as a motivation, and then uses this information to short-sell stocks. Harris offers a few examples of this in action, but none are very convincing, so let me try to construct one. A fear algorithm such as Harris describes would be able to predict the exact moment when investors panic about cigarettes being banned, irrespective of whether the ban happens or not – and so predict the resulting movement in tobacco-company stocks.

Easier said than done. We know from behavioural economics that investors can act irrationally and that human emotion plays a large role in decision-making, but predicting it is extremely difficult. Some of the most interesting research in this field has been done by Cambridge neurobiologist John Coates , who has examined how human behaviour affects financial decisions, and how swings in financial markets can produce physical responses in investors. Coates has shown how investors' bodies react to swings in the market: their metabolism speeds up, testosterone and adrenalin levels rise, they breathe faster, their nervous systems redistribute blood across their bodies, and so on.

What's more, these changes have a reinforcing effect, because alterations within traders' physiologies cause their risk preferences to shift dramatically, accentuating peaks and troughs. So, as with professional athletes, human biology gives us clues about the risk/reward decisions traders are likely to make. However, Harris goes beyond this: Hoffman's computer predicts not only volatility but also pinpoints when investors will stop acting rationally and fear will take over. And this is where, for me, Harris goes one step too far. For the past 25 years I have seen people hoping to predict stocks based on chaos theory, artificial intelligence, neural network and real-time linguistic search. So far, they've had very little success.

Harris is a master of pace and entertainment, and The Fear Index is a thoroughly enjoyable book. A lot of research has gone into it – from the rare-book market to hedge fund investors – and many details are amusingly accurate. In particular, Harris weaves into the story the famous 2010 "Flash Crash" in which the Dow Jones lost more than 1,000 points before recovering most of it within minutes. The many quotes from Darwin will give a clue to where the book is heading. The upshot may be about as believable as Jurassic Park but, once again, I may be overly familiar with what computers can and can't do. Read the book. If I die tomorrow, blame the computer.

Emmanuel Roman is chief operating officer of the Man Group

• Robert Harris
• The Observer
• Paul Greengrass
• Financial crisis
• Hedge funds

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The Fear Index by Robert Harris

With the FTSE recording its biggest quarterly drop in years, turmoil on the bond markets and the prospect of economic meltdown and the possible disintegration of the euro zone, Robert Harris' new thriller couldn't be more timely.

The Fear Index centres on Geneva based hedge fund operator Alex Hoffman. The publicity shy American, a former scientist at the CERN project, is the big brain behind the VIXAL 4 software system, an incredibly complex system that uses computer algorithms to predict the movement of financial markets and subsequently rake in billions of dollars in profit for himself, his English business partner Hugo and a motley assortment of international investors. With VIXAL4 turning everything it touches into virtual gold it appears that Alex Hoffman Investments are bang on course to bank even more billions in commissions.

An innocuous looking break-in at Hoffman's home where nothing is stolen and nobody is seriously hurt is the cue for a nightmarish period of paranoia and uncertainty. Who sent Hoffman a first edition of Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals? Who bought all of the pieces at the his wife's maiden art exhibition? Who transferred millions from his bank account a month ago? And what kind of fraudster would repay that money back to the very same account, not only in full but with interest? Who is trying to mess with Hoffman's mind and more importantly, why?

So begins a cycle of paranoia, violence and mental disintegration that has implications not just for Hoffman, his family and his business partners but for the markets as a whole?

Anyone who has read any of Harris' previous novels from Fatherland (the what if the Nazis had won the war), his Roman trilogy and the thinly veiled critique of the Blair premiership in The Ghost will know that he can relied up to create a pacey, punchy thriller and The Fear Index is no exception with enough twists, turns and set pieces to keep most thriller junkies more than satisfied. What sets Harris apart from most thriller writers is examining some very big ideas while also keeping the pages turning at a nifty pace.

What if a computer could automatically sift millions of media sources, pick up underlying bad news trends and subsequently make a whacking great profit off the back of it? A chilling example from The Fear Index centres on shorting a share in an airline which subsequently goes on to crash. It sounds far fetched. But.... A market was created where people could wager on the likelihood of a war taking place. It was quickly shelved on the grounds of bad taste but the likelihood is that it would have proved a more accurate predictor of conflict than a number of spy organisation. Following a bookmaker's odds will usually give a better idea of something happening than relying on experts. Follow the money as the saying goes.

Similarly, Harris raises ethical questions about the role of artificial intelligence. Just what could happen if the computers take over. Anyone who has seen US drama Battlestar Galactica , like all the best science fiction, a fine allegory for troubled times, "humans built them, they evolved". Into what uncharted territories could computers be taking us and would we be able to stop them when they get there?

The Fear Index is a novel about big money and the excesses of market capitalism, about the wafer thin margins between genius and madness. It's timely, relevant and as a thriller should be, rather entertaining.

Further reading suggestion: Prediction: How to See and Shape the Future with Game Theory by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

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• Robert Harris
• Reviewed by Chris Bradshaw
• 4 Star Reviews
• General Fiction
• September 2011

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The Fear Index by Robert Harris

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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B : decent writing and suspense most of the way, but ultimately a pretty conventional cyber-thriller -- and a wasted opportunity

See our review for fuller assessment.

   Review Consensus :   Solid thriller    From the Reviews : "The fact that this plot is wholly implausible does nothing to diminish the fun. The Fear Index is an escapist thriller to rank with the best of them, and as a guide to what hedge funds actually do, it is surprisingly clear and instructive." - The Economist "Harris' brisk, movie-ready yarn may make you reconsider your mattress as a retirement-fund option." - Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly "Like all Harris's books, this one is readily enjoyable as a suspense story, although some may find the ultimate explanation slightly preposterous (not as far-fetched as that delivered in Archangel however). But what makes Harris's thrillers so much more rewarding than those of his rivals is that they all, whatever their ostensible subject, come out of his deep and expert interest in politics, broadly conceived -- which is to say, in power, in how power is taken, held and lost; how some people are able to dominate others; how wealth and status, fear and greed, work." - David Sexton, Evening Standard "(A) fine dystopian parable, especially impressive for the fact that instead of giving up on what really goes on in most banks and hedge funds and making them the mere backdrop for money-laundering and ancillary skulduggery, as many thriller writers have done, his heart of darkness is the thing itself." - John Gapper, Financial Times " Angst ist ein routiniert gebauter Thriller, der Einblicke in die Finanzwelt erlaubt, die über weite Strecken beklemmend realistisch erscheinen: Wer endlich einmal wissen will, wie ein Hedgefonds funktioniert oder wie man es anstellen muss, um als Millionär nur zehn Prozent Steuern zu zahlen, greife zu diesem Buch. Dass die Logik und der angestaubte Frankenstein-Plot einige Mottenlöcher aufweisen, muss man ebenso hinnehmen wie den langatmigen, arg bemühten Showdown zwischen Hoffmann und seinem entfesselten Geschöpf." - Hubert Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "Enjoyable as a techno-thriller in the mode of Michael Crichton (whose quasi-scientific style seems to be echoed in some sections)" - Mark Lawson, The Guardian "As fine examples of the genre always have, Harris's speculative fiction hothouses the seed of possibility that lurks within new technologies into a monstrous growth." - Boyd Tonkin, The Independent "(F)or my money Harris�s most enjoyable novel since Enigma (...) It�s all fairly silly, and fairly entertaining: what better way to pass a few idle hours as the global economy goes down the pan than by reading about a bunch of really rich and really unpleasant people having a really terrible time ?" - Thomas Jones, London Review of Books "While The Fear Index works well as a science-fiction-tinged thriller and delivers a high-spec Hollywood finale, Harris has woven some fascinating subplots into the novel." - Alex Preston, New Statesman "This fleet-footed, if sometimes hokey, novel takes place in the rarefied world of hedge funds (.....) It�s an energetically researched tale (.....) It�s also a familiar story of hubris and its fallout." - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "This is creepy fun." - John Schwartz, The New York Times Book Review "Harris is a master of pace and entertainment, and The Fear Index is a thoroughly enjoyable book. A lot of research has gone into it � from the rare-book market to hedge fund investors -- and many details are amusingly accurate." - Emmanuel Roman, The Observer "(A)s exciting as this first half is (save for a melodramatic, distracting and disposable subplot involving Hoffmann's wife and her career as an artist), it's largely a MacGuffin for what follows. (...) Harris has fashioned in The Fear Index a thriller that's part Kafka, part Orwell, part Darwin -- with just about all parts exciting and pertinent." - Gerald Bartell, San Francisco Chronicle " The Fear Index , which unfolds over the course of a single day in Switzerland, can be read as Harris�s response to the financial turmoil of the last few years. (...) What follows is a slow-burning story of suspense and paranoia with a climax that will delight Harris�s legion of fans. The Fear Index may lack the giddy momentum of The Ghost , but its moral purpose is graver. Harris skewers the hubris and greed of the financial classes; the very people, indeed, who will consume the book with such relish." - Charles Cumming, The Spectator "Best known for historical novels, this former political journalist proves his range with a techno-thriller that feels as topical as Newsnight. Beyond this equivocal virtue, the novel has a sophistication that lifts beyond banker-bashing. Harris takes aim at a corrupted system from a moral and intellectual height that practically induces vertigo. Down at street level, however, his drama sometimes feels sketchy." - Benjamin Evans, The Telegraph " The Fear Index is a frightening book, of course, as, with its title, it intends. Harris has an excellent sense of pace, and understands as much about fear in literature as Hoffmann does in markets. But in the end, the book is cosy. In fact, his thriller is constructed -- presumably intentionally -- like a successful Hollywood film, right down to the massive explosion in the last few pages. (...) It is all hugely enjoyable." - Charles Moore, The Telegraph "Run-of-the-mill fisticuffs and explosions come as a letdown after so much ingenious buildup. Even so, The Fear Index has enough suspense, cleverness and spookiness to warrant being added to your portfolio -- er, I mean, your library." - Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

The complete review 's Review :

over three years, even as the financial markets have tanked, we've returned them a profit of eighty-three percent and I defy anyone to find any hedge fund anywhere that has produced such consistent alpha.

One thing we've been able to do, for instance, is correlate recent market fluctuations with the frequency rate of fear-related words in the media -- terror, alarm, panic, horror, dismay, dread, scare, anthrax, nuclear. Our conclusion is that fear is driving the world as never before.

     "And VIXAL-4 is an autonomous machine-learning algorithm," said Hoffmann. "As it collects and analyses more data, it's only likely to become more effective."

- M.A.Orthofer , 2 April 2012

About the Author :

       British author Robert Harris, born in 1957, achieved international success with his first novel, Fatherland . He has been a correspondent for the BBC, and a columnist for the Sunday Times .

© 2012-2016 the complete review Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links

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The Fear Index review: A psychological thriller with a dash of AI

When a wealthy technology entrepreneur invents an AI-driven system capable of predicting how human fear affects the world's financial markets, nothing turns out quite as he planned

By Linda Marric

9 February 2022

Alex Hoffman (Josh Hartnett) creates an AI-based system to monetise fear in The Fear Index

The Fear Index

David Caffrey

Sky Atlantic/NOW TV

IN RECENT years, big corporations have made it their business to keep a close eye on developments in artificial intelligence. From predicting trends in markets to planning risk-mitigation strategies, companies are constantly on the lookout for new ways to capitalise on AI to stay ahead of the game.

The Fear Index , a four-part psychological thriller based on Robert Harris’s 2011 bestselling novel of the same name, explores the ethical and moral issues wrapped up in applying AI to business, and asks some pertinent questions about the morality of using scientific advances for the sole purpose of making money.

Josh Hartnett ( Pearl Harbor, The Black Dahlia ) stars as Alex Hoffman, a wealthy technology entrepreneur who invents an AI-driven system capable of predicting how human fear affects behaviour and how that , in turn, affects fluctuations of the world’s financial markets. This knowledge promises not only power, but also considerable returns for Alex’s multibillionaire clients.

Directed by David Caffrey ( Peaky Blinders, The Alienist ), the series also stars Line of Duty alum Arsher Ali as Alex’s best friend and business partner Hugo, alongside Leila Farzad ( I Hate Suzie ) as Alex’s wife Gabby.

The action covers an intense 24-hour period in which Alex, a former scientist at the CERN particle physics laboratory , prepares to launch his morally questionable money-spinner. “Humans act in very predictable ways when they are frightened,” he assures his wealthy investors.

Yet, having promised billions in profit to his already rich clients, Alex’s plans are thrown into chaos when he is attacked by an unknown assailant at the home he shares with Gabby the night before the launch, leaving him disoriented and confused.

The next day, acting increasingly erratically and struggling to keep on top of things, Alex and Hugo don’t quite get the launch day they had in mind. It doesn’t help that an unexpected tragedy prompts some of their employees to start to question the morality of the whole endeavour.

Meanwhile, Alex becomes convinced that mysterious forces are conspiring to frame him for a series of acts he has no memory of having carried out . Questioned by the police and deserted by his wife, Alex finds himself in free fall, no longer sure what is real and what is happening only in the darkest corners of his imagination.

The Fear Index takes us not only into the mind of a man in a mental health crisis, but also provides a glimpse into a world where billions are made and spent in seconds, and where whole economies can be derailed by the timely use of a mathematical equation.

Caffrey adds a faint air of sci-fi and mystery to the proceedings , and ultimately delivers a gripping and robust thriller in which nothing is quite what it seems. A series of red herrings are peppered throughout the story to keep viewers on their toes. These add a note of suspense to the narrative but, to my mind, the series works best when viewed as a psychological drama about a man struggling to cope with psychosis as his life falls apart.

Although clearly made with fans of Line of Duty – the BBC’s long-running cop show – in mind, The Fear Index sadly lacks its punchiness and accessibility. With a screenplay filled with overly melodramatic exchanges and jarring technical jargon, the series often feels confusing and needlessly meandering. Still, Hartnett delivers a phenomenal turn and is the best thing about this flawed, yet highly watchable, mystery.

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The Fear Index

Robert harris, reviewed by richard saar, i read a lot science fiction and fantasy books and they can be pretty long, complex and take some time to read. you know what i mean, lots of big long exotic names, countries, empires, planets, factions...  so many that it can often take some time just to work out who's doing what to whom and get into the groove of reading them. which is why i will always need straight out action/thriller books to kind of cleanse my mental palate. you start, within a chapter you're off and racing and you don't stop until the end, don't worry about anything else along the way.

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The Fear Index Hardcover – Deckle Edge, January 31, 2012

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• Print length 304 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Knopf
• Publication date January 31, 2012
• Dimensions 6.64 x 1.25 x 9.61 inches
• ISBN-10 9780307957931
• ISBN-13 978-0307957931
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Is there a genre of fiction that Robert Harris has not mastered? His first novel, Fatherland , set in a triumphant Germany’s post-World War II Berlin (yes, triumphant!) ranks as one of the finest “what if?” stories ever written. Pompeii sends us farther back in time, to the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius only days before the volcano was set to erupt. Ancient Rome at its pulpiest. Who knew aqueducts could be so sexy? The Ghost Writer (winner of the 2008 International Thriller Writers award for Best Novel) claims the shadowy world of contemporary North Atlantic politics as its subject. Classy Brit espionage best enjoyed with a gin and tonic in hand. All were international bestsellers. All were page-turners non-pareil. But best, all were frighteningly intelligent. Thrillers that made you think as you maddeningly bit your nails.

With The Fear Index , Mr. Harris has turned his gimlet eye on the secret world of billion dollar hedge funds, namely those that seek to earn profits by computer driven program trading. The result is a wholly unique entertainment: a strange, compelling, and utterly propulsive novel. I’m not sure who would enjoy it more: George Soros, Arthur C. Clarke or Edgar Allen Poe.

The story takes place over a tumultuous twenty-four hour period in the life of Dr. Alexander Hoffmann, computer scientist, mathematical genius, and, of late, hedge fund billionaire. It begins (as a fine thriller should) on a dark and stormy night when Hoffmann is awoken by an intruder inside his sixty million dollar villa on the shores of Lake Geneva. A confrontation occurs, Hoffmann is injured, and in his attempt to solve just how someone was able to gain entry into his well-guarded palace, Hoffmann comes face to face with the greatest danger he can imagine: himself. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say: his intellect. To reveal more would ruin the adventure...and adventure it is.

There is, however, a backstory. Hoffmann was not always a stock trader. He began his career as a computer scientist at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) where his work in artificial intelligence involved modeling sophisticated algorithms that programmed computers to teach themselves. It is this mastery of algorithms, and how they train computers to mimic human behavior, that he has turned to such profitable use at Hoffmann Investment Technologies. And it is this mastery that will come to haunt him.

What Harris does so admirably--in my mind, better than any other writing today--is intertwine nifty, page turning plots with important historical, political, or in this case, sociological questions. The late Michael Crichton did this kind of story well. In The Fear Index , Robert Harris does it fantastically.

From Booklist

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0307957934
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition (January 31, 2012)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780307957931
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307957931
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.38 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.64 x 1.25 x 9.61 inches
• #859 in Technothrillers (Books)
• #5,648 in Spies & Political Thrillers
• #16,768 in Suspense Thrillers

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About the author

Robert harris.

Robert Harris is the author of Pompeii, Enigma, and Fatherland. He has been a television correspondent with the BBC and a newspaper columnist for the London Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. His novels have sold more than ten million copies and been translated into thirty languages. He lives in Berkshire, England, with his wife and four children.

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Season 1 – The Fear Index

Critics reviews, audience reviews, cast & crew.

Josh Hartnett

Alex Hoffman

Hugo Quarry

Leila Farzad

Gabby Hoffman

Grégory Montel

Jean-Philippe Leclerc

Aïssa Maïga

Marieme Sagnane

Lin Ju-Long

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The Fear Index review: Adaptation struggles to live up to Robert Harris’s ingenious techno-thriller

Josh hartnett’s performance and the intriguing premise are enough to keep ‘the fear index’ rolling along, but the production sometimes lapses into cliché, article bookmarked.

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On the whole, I think it’s fair to say that the adaptations of Robert Harris ’s novels have not lived up to the source material. It’s not that they have been bad, exactly. There has been no shortage of attempts and they have always attracted interesting people. HBO’s miniseries of Fatherland had its moments. Enigma , with its Tom Stoppard screenplay and Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet in the leads, was alright. Roman Polanski has had a couple of cracks. First 2010’s The Ghost , in which he directed Pierce Brosnan as the Blair-analogue prime minister Adam Lang. Then, in 2019, An Officer and a Spy , possibly Harris’s most satisfying novel, a historical drama about the Dreyfus Affair starring Jean Dujardin. Remember him?

For all the talent involved, however, the films have never quite achieved the blend of propulsive plotting and deftly worn research that sends each new Harris book spiralling into the Christmas stockings of dads all over the world. Perhaps contemporary prestige TV would be a better vehicle, allowing the worlds to be rendered in more detail. The Fear Index (Sky Atlantic) gives us a chance to find out. Published in 2011, the novel was Harris’s delayed response to the financial crisis, a techno-thriller based on the “flash crash” of 2010, when stock markets fell precipitously before recovering just as fast, in one of Wall Street’s most alarming lunch breaks.

An adaptation has been a long time in the works. Paul Greengrass was originally attached 10 years ago, when it was going to be a feature film, but it finally reaches us as a four-part TV drama. Josh Hartnett plays Dr Alex Hoffman, a former Cern physicist who has turned his powers to the financial markets with tremendous success. In this first episode Hoffman and his CEO Hugo (Arsher Ali) are preparing to unleash their latest invention, an investment AI called VIXAL-4, when Alex and his artist wife Gabby (Leila Farzad) suffer a break-in at their massive lakeside home in Geneva (played here by Budapest). The intrusion precipitates a crisis in Hoffman, who begins seeing things. The “Fear Index” of the title is the volatility index, or Vix, a measure of market uncertainty. It’s a promising metaphor for a thriller: what is your appetite for risk? Can you look fear in the face?

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I have a lot of time for Hartnett, who experienced the moronic height of stardom after his heartthrob turn in Pearl Harbor and decided it wasn’t for him. Instead, he spends his time hanging out with his wife and kids in Surrey and picking and choosing roles he likes. You can see why he was drawn to this. It is a proper starring role, which requires him to start out suave and assured, and slowly commit to a breakdown. If he’s slightly too handsome to be a plausible nerd of this calibre, that’s hardly his fault. It’s more delightful still to see Gregory Montel, the dishevelled but charming agent from Call My Agent, pop up as Leclerc, the dishevelled but charming detective charged with investigating the break-in. He is not naturally sympathetic to these tycoons rattling around in palaces and pricing out the locals, which adds to the Hoffmans’ sense of entrenchment.

The production sometimes lapses into thriller-cliché. Presumably people are able to have brain scans without freaking out, so why does it never happen on TV? For all Hartnett’s haunted grimaces, it’s difficult for any actor to convey a troubled mental state as effectively as a novel. The genius of Harris, who started out as a journalist, is to convey complex information – about 19th-century France, or Ancient Rome, or international high-finance – in such a way that the reader is informed without ever being patronised. In Conclave , he made a thriller out of a papal election, for crying out loud. The man knows his stuff. The lead performances, and the intriguing premise, are enough to keep The Fear Index rolling along, but – like money – it’s more reliable in paper than on screen.

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'The Fear Index': release date, cast interviews, plot, trailer and all about the new thriller starring Josh Hartnett

'The Fear Index' on Sky Atlantic sees Josh Hartnett play a tech genius whose life is on the line.

High-stakes financial thriller series The Fear Index , based on the bestselling novel by Robert Harris , is coming to Sky Atlantic, with Penny Dreadful star Josh Hartnett heading up the cast. He plays an American physicist, who creates an AI-driven system that exploits fear in the financial markets and operates at lightning speed to make big returns. But everything starts spinning out of control on the day of the launch…

Josh told us : “I liked the book very much, Robert Harris is an astounding writer, he takes on so many different genres and always adds an element of history although it’s a contemporary thriller. It’s cleverly put together. Originally, the book was based on Frankenstein so it's about the hubris of creation and also being able to survive your own creation. Be careful what you wish for!"

So here’s everything you need to know about The Fear Index on Sky Atlantic, including cast news, Josh Hartnett's thoughts on the role, plot and first look pics…

'The Fear Index' release date

The Fear Index is a four-episode series  airing in the UK on Sky Atlantic from Thursday February 10 at 9pm. All four episodes are available on Sky Box Sets and streaming service NOW from the same air date. We'll update on the US release date and broadcasting channel as soon we have it.

Is there a trailer for 'The Fear Index'?

Yes a trailer for The Fear Index has been released by Sky . " Fear is driving the world like never before," says Josh’s character, Dr Alex Hoffman, at the beginning of the high-octane trailer. And fear is certainly something that threatens to overwhelm Alex when he realises someone is out to destroy his life. There are some high-speed car chases, falls from buildings and deadly explosions in the trailer, too, which also give a taste of the action-packed Sky Atlantic series. 

'The Fear Index' plot

The Fear Index kicks off in Geneva’s financial district where Dr. Alex Hoffman is launching  an  AI-driven system  that  exploits fear in the financial markets, promising to make billions. But Alex’s  sanity is shaken when he’s  viciously  attacked by a man  who  knows  all  his security codes. After more unexplained occurrences, Alex becomes  convinced he’s being framed. But  as secrets  surface  from his past, will anyone believe that he isn’t just losing his mind? What follows is  a terrifying journey through the worst 24 hours  of  Alex’s life,  as he’s forced to question everything he thinks he knows, while also realizing just how  destructive his AI-driven creation might be…

'The Fear Index' cast — Josh Hartnett on playing Dr. Alex Hoffman

Josh Hartnett plays technology genius Dr. Alex Hoffman,  who experiences a waking nightmare in the worst 24 hours of his life. 

Josh says: Alex is a scientist who has always been a prodigy. He’s more interested in AI than money, but he ends up in finance, because that seems the best outlet. But it leads to potentially dangerous situations for him and the people around him. At this point, he is living in a world that he doesn’t understand. His friend Hugo has hired himself to deal with the day-to-day things in the company that Alex is not interested in pursuing. Alex is driven only by the concept. More than anything, he is interested in using the world of finance to create the series of data points, rather than making money. He is more interested in science than finance. The problem is, the more knowledge his machine acquires, the more sentient it becomes and the more danger it poses. 

"The story is based on Frankenstein, and it works brilliantly. Alex fits the model of Dr Frankenstein very well. A lot of scientists and tech guys are uncontrollable. This story shows that we’re at their mercy and how fallible that process can be." 

Josh first found TV fame starring as Michael Fitzgerald in the 1990s US version of the British crime drama Cracker but is best known on the small screen for starring as Ethan Chandler in the horror series Penny Dreadful . He’s also starred in plenty of famous films, including The Black Dahlia , Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down .

'The Fear Index' cast — who else is starring

Arsher Ali ( The Ritual ,   Informer ) will play Hugo, Alex’s hedge fund business partner and best friend Hugo Quarry. Meanwhile, Leila Farzad ( I Hate Suzie , Innocent ) is his talented artist wife Gabby, and Grégory  Montel  ( Call My Agent ) is Detective Leclerc, who’s assigned to Alex’s intriguing case.

Arsher Ali on playing Hugo Quarry in 'The Fear Index'

Arsher Ali says: "Hugo is sharp, calculating and charismatic. The Gordon Gecko of Geneva. But it’s gone beyond the money for Hugo. He’s already flush. It’s like hunting big game for him now. It’s about winning the trophy and constantly feeding all those dark and toxic impulses. He’s brutal. Merciless. He knows all the schedules for all the buses he could throw you under. And he wouldn’t hesitate. 

"Hugo is the complete opposite of Alex. Alex is an introverted intellectual who has devised this incredible algorithm, but he’s just not very good with people. Hugo is an extrovert alpha. If you asked Hugo about the system, he’d say, “it flashes and makes us a lot of money.” But he’s the perfect front man for Alex. Alex is the brains and Hugo is the one who picks up the interpersonal slack, does all the glad-handing and charms people. 

"Hugo left the City and decided to start his own company. He knew of Alex, tracked him down and brought him to the dark side. He says to him, “let’s get together and make a lot of money. You can further your research while I can buy a yacht.” That’s a very favourable exchange for both of them. But they both have a polar opposite relationship to money. Hugo want’s the power that comes with it. For Alex, it’s a means to end." 

Grégory  Montel on playing Detective Leclerc in 'The Fear Index' 

Grégory says: "Inspector Leclerc has lived a very quiet life in Switzerland. Nothing interesting has ever happened in his career before. Then Alex comes along. This is the first time that something exciting has occurred in Leclerc’s life, and that’s all down to the personality of Alex. 

"I met such nice and delicious people on this production. Because English is not my first language, at first it was not that easy for me to create a link with the other actors. But from the very first day on set, they all helped me with everything. Everybody was so friendly. Josh is the master of the show and he is marvellous to work with. I had the great pleasure of becoming friends with him, as I did with Leila and Arsher. During lockdown, we could only hang out with each other during our rest time. We spent evenings together, and we had such a great time. It felt like a family. It was a really lovely experience."

'The Fear Index' episode guide

Here's our full episode guide for The Fear Index , with spoilers, so do look away if you don't want to know...

EPISODE 1  Former CERN scientist turned Hedge Fund CEO Alex Hoffman anonymously receives an antique book at his Geneva mansion. That night, while his wife Gabby sleeps, Alex is attacked and left unconscious by an intruder. On awaking, Alex tells detective Leclerc that the attacker looked identical to the gaunt, ponytailed man from the antique book. Leclerc is perplexed. At the hospital, Alex’s CAT scan results concern doctors. Though he could have dementia, Alex insists on going to the office. Today, with business partner Hugo, he’s due to present his money-making AI system VIXAL-4 to investors. Programmed to analyse the stock market at rapid speed and place successful investments, VIXAL’s most radical feature is its ability to sense fear in the marketplace. In his office, a call to the bookseller leaves Alex confused. Apparently, he bought the antique book himself via email, but Alex has no recollection of this. Later, while Alex and Hugo present to investors, VIXAL raises eyebrows when it starts shorting airline stocks. Meanwhile, Leclerc discovers Alex has been psychologically unstable in the past and is unnerved when forensics report no sign of a break in. 

EPISODE 2  There’s a fatal plane crash. Airline stocks plummet. VIXAL’s foresight makes the fund millions but Marieme (Chief Risk officer) is concerned about how this will look to regulators. Alex harbours his own concerns when he finds terrorist websites open on his computer. Meanwhile, it’s the opening of Gabby’s art exhibition, inspired by the trauma of having a miscarriage. Soon after Alex arrives, Gabby is shocked to find out from Leclerc that Alex suffered a breakdown while working at CERN. Moments later, an announcement is made that an anonymous buyer has bought all her art. Gabby accuses Alex, thinking this is a misjudged romantic gesture. Though he denies it, Gabby tells Alex their marriage is over. Alex frantically rushes back the investor’s lunch but is diverted when he sees the pony-tailed intruder.

EPISODE 3  Alex follows the intruder to a hotel in the red-light district. The man (Karp) claims Alex hired him to engage in sadistic fantasy before killing him – he shows Alex emails to prove it. A fight ensues and Karp ends up dead with Alex fleeing the scene. Alex goes to his therapist’s, paranoid he’s losing his mind again. It appears the dark sentiments written in the emails Karp showed him are verbatim something Alex had voiced during his last breakdown. Convinced he’s being framed, Alex rushes back to the office. Freaking out alone, Alex realises there are hidden cameras in every room. When he accuses Genoud (Head of Security), Alex is shown email proof that he asked Genoud to install the cameras. Someone is after him. Could it be VIXAL? 

EPISODE 4  VIXAL has gone beyond its programming limits and is crashing the financial markets. Alex tries to shut it down, but the system keeps rebooting. When Marieme falls down a lift shaft, Alex thinks VIXAL is somehow behind her death and suspects his own life is now at risk. Leclerc investigates Karp’s death at the hotel; this is murder, not suicide. On hearing about Alex’s behaviour at the therapist clinic, Leclerc suspects Alex is involved and heads to arrest him. But Alex is maniacally driving to the warehouse that stores VIXAL’s central units, the last resort for shutting it down. Inside the warehouse, Alex realises that VIXAL has been collecting footage of Alex and exploiting his fears. Gabby tries to get Alex out of the warehouse but on realising the power and threat of VIXAL, he douses the machinery in petrol and sets it alight. The machines go up in flames, leaving Alex fighting for his life in hospital but it looks like VIXAL might have found a way to survive…

All about 'The Fear Index' author Robert Harris

Former journalist and author Robert Harris wrote The Fear Index in 2012. His debut novel, however, was Fatherland , set in a world where the Nazis had won World War Two. It was an instant hit when it was published in 1992 and has since been made into a movie. 

His second novel Enigma was made into a film starring Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet and Tom Hollander and his 1998 book Archangel was made into a BBC miniseries with James Bond star Daniel Craig playing the main character Professor Fluke Kelso who is searching for the diary of Joseph Stalin.   

Robert Harris went on to be a prolific writer of historical fiction and his bestsellers include Pompeii , V2: A Novel of World War II and Munich , which has been made into a big-budget Netflix film Munich — The Edge of War starring Jeremy Irons and George MacKay .

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In the riveting “Skies of Thunder,” Caroline Alexander considers what it took to get supplies to Allied ground troops in China.

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SKIES OF THUNDER: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World, by Caroline Alexander

“You and your outfit have been assigned one of the most important military missions ever given to American soldiers — the task of driving the Japanese back to Tokyo.”

So begins “ A Pocket Guide to India ,” prepared for World War II service members in the western base section of the China-Burma-India Theater, commonly known as the C.B.I. “India is a strange, colorful land,” the guide continues. “If you exercise a normal amount of curiosity you’ll learn much that is fascinating; much that will enable you to begin stories to your children or grandchildren in later years, ‘Now, when I was in India. …’”

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My father, who served as an air traffic controller in the C.B.I., didn’t recall reading the “Pocket Guide,” but he did tell me stories of working in Delhi and Agra, a vital supply depot and service point, and traveling to various locations to lay radio-range beacons. The main point of these activities, he explained, was to enable pilots to fly supplies over the Himalayas to China. While it was always easy for me to picture my father in his control tower, those flights over the mountains remained mysterious until I read Alexander’s vivid account.

Alexander, the author of books on Shackleton’s Endurance expedition and the fateful voyage of the Bounty , begins with the Allied loss of Burma to the Japanese in April 1942, which sealed off the ground supply corridor from India to China and led to the opening of an “aerial Burma Road.” This treacherous route, known as “the Hump,” supplied Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government and Allied troops, including the 14th Air Force , commanded by the flamboyant Claire Chennault.

Alexander casts her story as an “epic,” yet it is one in which the actors suffer like Job more often than they fight like Achilles. There are stirring episodes of British sang-froid, “American-style glamour” and remarkable courage among the region’s remote tribal peoples, but it is perseverance that assumes heroic proportions: refugees escaping through the Burmese jungle; soldiers and local laborers hacking through that same jungle to build a new road; Assam airfield personnel living in squalor, seared by the sun, swamped by monsoons, but most of all shrouded in a “miasma of cynical indifference.” What unites this book with the author’s previous work is a fascination with human behavior in extremis.

While Alexander devotes considerable space to strategic and political issues, her interest lies primarily in the vicissitudes of individual human personality. In places she represents the theater’s dysfunction as a tragicomedy of failed relationships at the highest levels of command: between the mercurial Chiang Kai-shek and the American Joseph Stilwell, the theater’s irascible, insecure commanding general; between Stilwell and the unscrupulous, self-aggrandizing Chennault; between Stilwell and the British allies he loathed.

Alexander’s gift for dramatizing these personal animosities occasionally produces seductive yet oversimplified biographical explanations of historical problems, a mode E.H. Carr described as “the Bad King John theory of history.”

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Alexander adroitly explicates technical concepts — flight mechanics, de-icing, night vision — but is at her best rendering pilots’ fear. Besides terrain, its sources included weather, enemy aircraft, insufficient training, night missions and “short rations of fuel” on the return leg. At least a pilot could depend on his plane, the beloved Douglas C-47 Skytrain, until the introduction of unreliable or unsound higher-capacity models turned the machines themselves into another source of terror.

Readers thrilled by sagas of flight will marvel at the logistics required to transport a stunning 650,000 tons of cargo by air, the audacity required to fly the Hump, the search-and-rescue operations necessitated by its hazards and the experimental use of aviation involved in the Allied recapture of Burma in 1944.

They will also have to reckon with Alexander’s hard-nosed conclusions about the C.B.I. Others who have chronicled its history concentrated on the strategic merits of this deeply imperfect theater, or celebrated its pioneering use of air power.

The image that dominates the end of Alexander’s epic is “the aluminum trail” of wreckage — “the hundreds of crashed aircraft that still lie undiscovered in the jungles, valleys and fractured ranges beneath the Hump’s old route.”

SKIES OF THUNDER : The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World | By Caroline Alexander | Viking | 496 pp. | $32