Robert Harris's Horror Begins in Geneva

HITLER, STALIN, THE Bletchley Park code-breakers, ancient Rome—Robert Harris has made his name (and fortune) as a novelist by digging further and further back into the fantastical pasts of his imagination. Over the past few years, though, Harris has become more interested in writing up-to-the-minute thrillers. Five years ago, in The Ghost Writer, he anatomized the turmoil at the heart of a British government that looked eerily similar to those headed up by Tony Blair. (Despite its assassinations and car chases and improbably easy seductions, the novel laid bare the tensions that rove the Blair administration long before its tragic involvement in the Iraq war.) Now, in The Fear Index, Harris offers his take on the financial crisis that has engulfed the developed world pretty much since Blair left office. If nothing else, the book will make horrifying reading for any politician who thinks that some time soon things will be back to business as usual.