LoveReading Says
This must-read thriller is as fascinating as it is entertaining, and is on my list of favourite reads of the year. For those of you who remember the run on Northern Rock back in 2007, it was Robert Peston, then business editor for the BBC, who revealed that the bank had sought emergency funding from the Bank of England. This is clearly a man who understands the UK’s banking system and isn’t afraid to write about. You really don’t need to have read his debut novel Whistleblower which introduces journalist Gil Peck, this sits perfectly as a standalone which is always the sign of a great series. I appreciated the way the financial detailing was explained, it slipped into my consciousness without feeling as though I was attending a lecture. An impeccable balance of fact and fiction ensured I stayed in the moment, as though everything I was reading could in fact have happened. The characters felt authentic, with warts and all being revealed. As the tension increased and put the boot in, I was more than happy to cling to the edge of my seat as I read. This doesn’t have the feeling of being too polished, it is raw and gritty and wonderfully readable. I stayed up into the (very) early hours in order to finish and just had to include this novel as a LoveReading Star Book. The Crash is clever, thrilling, and leaves you with that deliciously heady feeling of a book well read. Bravo.
Liz Robinson
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The Crash Synopsis
As the world falls apart, a deadly conspiracy comes together . . .
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?
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781838777784 |
| Publication date: |
14th September 2023 |
| Author: |
Robert Peston |
| Publisher: |
Zaffre |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
400 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Thriller and Suspense
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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About Robert Peston
Robert Peston is ITV's political editor, presenter of the politics show 'Peston', founder of the education charity, Speakers for Schools (www.speakers4schools.org), and vice president of Hospice UK. He has written four critically acclaimed non-fiction books, How Do We Fix This Mess?, Who Runs Britain?, Brown's Britain and his latest, WTF?, which was described by the Financial Times as 'mandatory reading' for anyone seeking to understand Brexit, Trump and the collapse of confidence in western liberalism. For a decade until the end of 2015, he was at the BBC, as economics editor and business editor, and in the 1990s he was at the Financial Times, as political editor, financial editor and head of investigations. At the BBC he played a prominent role in exposing the causes and consequences of the credit crunch, banking crisis and Great Recession. Peston 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. The Whistleblower is his first novel. His blog is itv.com/robertpeston, on Facebook he is facebook.com/pestonITV and he is @peston on Twitter.
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