Zero Risk

 Zero Ri$k by Simon Hayes Read Along

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Review: 

The plot of this story had me intrigued from the start. Christmas, cyber crime, dodgy politicians - what isn’t to like in a plot. 

The book did not disappoint! 

I will be honest and say this book is a lot longer than my normal reads and that almost put me off. But if like me you like a shorter read to manage around a busy life then fear not. Although long, the book is split in to really simple and short chapters which fly by. I didn’t want to stop. 

I also loved the layout of the text messages and emails alongside the snippets of art. 

The characters were wonderful- I went through a range of emotions around some of them and then others like Kellett were easy to dislike all along. 

From the beginning I had an idea of who was behind the attack but then that changed and merged until a final revelation brought a whole new slant to the book for me. 

Well worth reading and highly recommend - if you aren’t sure which book to get someone (or yourself ) for Christmas (or anytime) then you’ve got Zero Risk of getting it wrong with this one!! 

Blurb 

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?

Author bio

Simon Hayes is an award-winning former headhunter and investment banker. His finance career took him from his home city London, where he was a top-ranked securities analyst in the Institutional Investor and Extel surveys, to the US, Hong Kong and Japan. Search led Simon back to Tokyo, where he was recognised as the “Best Headhunting Executive” in Japan by Asiamoney, then as head of a leading London-based Financial Services practice into the City's most exclusive boardrooms.

He wrote Zero Ri$k, his first novel, whilst creating the rubriqs® people skills system, and he spent much of 2023 in Zimbabwe on a major fraud case.. Born and raised in West London, Simon was the first member of his family to attend university, graduating from Trinity Hall, Cambridge with a degree in Law.