Zero Ri$k

23 December 2024… Rob Tanner should have been enjoying a rare day off from his life-consuming work as Chief Operating Officer at one of the country''s largest banks. But a panicked phone call from a senior colleague forces him to put his Christmas plans on ice: more than a thousand of the bank''s accounts have seen their balances increased by a factor of ten. Exactly ten. Through the inexplicably simple addition of an extra zero. And when the inflated balances prove to be neither early Christmas gifts, nor a botched computer system upgrade, but the most sophisticated cyber attack in history, Tanner finds himself in the eye of a "Black Swan'' storm no one predicted, but anyone could have anticipated.

Tanner enlists the help of brilliant American cyber security expert Ashley Markham, but the attacks only worsen: bank balances rise remorselessly and spread to all the nation''s banks. The only clues to the hacker''s intentions are cryptic daily emails, centred on Hieronymus Bosch''s medieval representation of the seven deadly sins—and packed with colourful artistic and cultural references—taunting Tanner and the newly incumbent Prime Minister, James Allen.

With financial markets—and the very world as he knows it—on the brink of collapse, Tanner races against the clock to decode not just the bizarre emails but their deeper meaning, and the implications for who he can really trust. All the while, his former boss “The Toad” is seeking revenge... and answers of his own.

This enthralling, multi-layered debut follows the story of a disillusioned banker facing unthinkable financial Armageddon, where money has no value, stock and bond prices are meaningless, and the economy is destroyed. Can Tanner unravel the mystery of the hacker''s obsession with Bosch, sin and retribution before modern society returns to the dark ages?

Book description:

• A multi-layered, race against time, cyber-crime thriller with a simple, original, "Black Swan'' premise that will keep you awake at night turning the pages… and questioning your dependence on modern technology.
• An intriguing cyber-take on the locked room mystery; a whydunnit as well as a whodunnit, centred on the modern seven deadly sins.
• Full of cryptic artistic and cultural references (or are they clues?).
• A thought-provoking morality tale set in London at Christmas (via Europe, the US and Africa).
• With short, sharp chapters and crisp dialogue from an ensemble cast… where the criminal may be the one person telling the truth.
• And, at its heart, an everyday tale of love, loss and redemption.