The Crash by Robert Peston.
Published 14th September 2023 by Zaffre.
From the cover of the book:
London, 2007. It's summer in the City: the economy is booming, profits are up and the stock market sits near record highs.
But journalist Gil Peck is a lone voice worrying it can't last. Deep in the plumbing of the financial system, he has noticed strange things happening which could threaten the whole economy. But nobody wants to hear it: not the politicians taking credit for an end to boom and bust, not the bankers pocketing vast bonuses, not even Gil's bosses at the BBC, who think it's irrelevant.
When Gil gets a tip-off that a small northern bank has run out of money, everything changes. His report sparks the first run on a UK bank in 140 years. The next day, Marilyn Krol, a director of the Bank of England dies in an apparent suicide.
For Gil, it's personal. Marilyn was his lover: was his scoop connected to her suicide? Or is there something more sinister in her death? Gil is determined to find out.
The more he investigates, the more he is drawn into the rotten heart of the financial system, where old school ties and secret Oxbridge societies lubricate vast and illegal conflicts of interest. The whole economy has been built on a house of cards, and Gil is threatening to bring it down.
When simply reporting the facts can make or break fortunes, Gil has to ask himself: is he crossing the line between journalist and participant? Are his own conflicts of interest making him reckless? And in a world ruled by greed where nothing and no-one is too big to fail, what price will he pay for uncovering the truth?
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London, 2007. The economy is booming, profits are rolling in, and everything related to the stock market is looking rosy. The promise of New Labour that the days of boom and bust are a thing of the past appears to be holding true, and the City is reaping the rewards.
Journalist, Gil Peck receives a tip-off that a northern bank is in trouble, caught up in the nasty business of the sub-prime loan scandal in the USA. If true, it is news that will rock the financial world, and could spell disaster for the investment sector. Despite the lack of interest in the story from his bosses at the BBC, Gil decides that this is a scoop too good to ignore, and breaks the news on his blog. He suddenly finds himself at the centre of a huge story, and being blamed for a run on the bank.
As Gil delves deeper into the murky affairs behind the bank's woes, he realises that there is far more at stake than the deposits of their customers. Financial misconduct and illegal trading fuelled by greed lie at the heart of Britain's financial markets, and Gil feels sure it is his job to expose the scandal to the public.
When his lover and confidante Marilyn Krol, a director at the Bank of England, is found hanged, he is convinced that her death is more than the suicide the police believe it to be. His pursuit of the truth has now become personal, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to get justice for her untimely death. However, those making vast sums from the dodgy dealing are keen to keep the enormous scale of the operation secret, and the power of wealth and the old school tie are significant weapons against a wildcard like Gil..
The Crash is a delicious thriller set in the world of finance, by eminent journalist Robert Peston, as a follow-up to his debut novel The Whistleblower. Gil Peck, an intriguing mix of hero and anti-hero, returns in this cracking story that explores the shady shenanigans that link politics, money and power, set against the disastrous events of the financial crash of 2007.
I do not even know where to begin summing up how brilliant this novel is. Although the characters here are all fictional, Peston cleverly manages to retain enough real world events and the personalities that played on the world political and financial stages of 2007, to make this novel engaging and chillingly authentic - I had endless fun spotting the caricatures here, who I sincerely hope are a lot more villainous than the real people they echo...
Gil is a fine protagonist, in all his chaotic madness, with his love of fine food, fine wine, and sartorial elegance... and all the weighty personal baggage that ends up exposing the human frailty he keeps under wraps. He is a self-centred, narcissist, but not without charms, and his determination to get to the bottom of a story is admirable - in partnership with his friend, the quite excellent FC reporter Jess Neeskens. Through them, Peston examines some hard questions about journalism too, especially when it comes to the conflict between exposing the truth and a responsibility to have a care for how stories are broken, and the fall-out their words might create.
There is a lot of complex finance and stock market trade related jargon in this book, which you do need to keep up with, but Peston does a great job of explaining how this all works and the impact of the illegal and foolhardy acts in the real world, and in the story. He really shines a light on the sphere of journalism too, especially the relationships between different facets of the media circus and their influence. I am in awe of the way he manages to take a world that is mystifying to so many of us, and work finance into a novel that brims over with compelling investigative twists and turns; gritty gangster vibes; atmospheric espionage intrigue; and good old fashioned, edge-of-your-seat adventure.
This is a proper page-turner of a novel, with an intelligent plot, characters to get your teeth into, a voyage into the darkest of hearts, and plenty of action. I loved it!
The Crash is availableto buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Zaffre for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Compulsive Readers Tours forinviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
Robert Peston is ITV News political editor and presenter of ITV's Wednesday night politics show Peston. Founder of the education charity Speakers for Schools, and vice president of Hospice UK, he has written four non-fiction books: How Do We Fix This Mess?. Who Runs Britain?, Brown's Britain, and WTF?
Robert has won more than 30 awards for his journalism, including Journalist of the Year and Scoop of the Year (twice) from the Royal Television Society.
His critically acclaimed debut thriller, The Whistleblower, was published in 2021.
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