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The Fear Index by Robert Harris
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Opening with a quote from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and set in the rich enclaves of Geneva (where Frankenstein was originally written), this thriller follows an unlikeable physicist (and billionaire) - Dr Alex Hoffmann - through 48 hours of his life as his world begins to fall apart. Hoffmann, married to a beautiful artist who's about to launch her first exhibition, co-runs a successful Hedge Funds Investment company alongside a smooth talking Brit good at bringing in rich investors. But when his mansion is broken into by a maniac wielding a knife, he finds himself slowly hunted (and driven mad) by someone with a personal vendetta.
My edition of this novel came with a Q&A by Richard & Judy with the author, bookclub questions and a further article where Robert Harris talked about his fiction writing. I wasn't at all surprised to learn that The Fear Index is already in development to become a motion picture. The entire novel reads like a Michael Crichton "techno-thriller" with the expected twists and turns, sex scenes, grubby killings, police chases and Hollywood ending.
Because it was written with cinema in mind, character development sits behind plot. Robert Harris does have one big, and interesting, concept based on the recent banking crisis and the misuse of our technology but no space is left for characters to leap off the page. The storytelling is decent and the pace picks up towards the end but the original idea that holds the story together isn't strong enough to make this a memorable read.
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