Libor scandal thriller to Virgin Books

Virgin Books has acquired the "gripping tale" of the financial scam in which a small group of bankers set out to make a killing with tiny adjustments to Libor.

The Spider Network - The Wild Story of a Maths Genius, A Gang of Backstabbing Bankers and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by the Wall Street Journal's David Enrich, features "obsessive traders, misbehaving brokers, childish nicknames, greed, cocaine, prostitutes and huge amounts of risk". The protagonist, Tom Hayes, meanwhile, is "a quiet, mildly autistic British banker who dislikes parties but loves finance and QPR", whose skills "landed him in the crosshairs of prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic".

The book will be "as much a human drama as a financial one", as the author spent years getting to know Hayes and is therefore able to provide a "candid, behind-the-scenes" view into the world in which he and his confederates operated.

Jamie Joseph, senior commissioning editor for Virgin Books, acquired The Spider Network from HarperCollins US in a pre-empt deal.

Joseph said: "David’s book promises not only to be the definitive account of one of the biggest banking scandals ever, but also a dazzling real-life thriller packed with outlandish characters and rampant greed in the City of London. I can’t wait to publish it."

Enrich is a writer and editor at the Wall Street Journal based in London, who oversees a team of financial investigative reporters, and earlier this week won a prestigious US award for feature journalism in the 2016 Gerald Loeb Awards for his five-part series of articles about Tom Hayes. He said: "The Spider Network is not only the story of an epic financial scandal with the potential to affect countless victims, but also a highly personal tale based on my years of exclusive access to the man at the centre of the controversy. I’m thrilled that the book will be published in the UK and Commonwealth by Jamie Joseph and the team at Virgin Books."

The Spider Network – The Wild Story of a Maths Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers and one of the Greatest Scams in Financial History will be published in hardback by Virgin Books in March 2017.