Paranoia runs deep in 'The Fear Index' by Robert Harris

THE FEAR INDEX, by Robert Harris. Alfred A. Knopf, 285 pp., $25.95.

Let it never again be said that high finance is boring. With a satirist's eye for detail and a note-perfect instinct for pacing, Robert Harris brings the Geneva banking scene to ominous life in his twisty new thriller "The Fear Index," its virtues somewhat mitigated by the problem that, within about 10 pages, the identity of the villain will no longer be a mystery to most readers, though it remains hidden from the main characters until the last few chapters.

This doesn't seem to be the way Harris has planned it, but even the jacket copy manages to give away most of the game. It's hard to come up with a synopsis that doesn't at least hint loudly at the story's resolution, so I'm not going to try. Harris' hero is Alex Hoffmann, a hedge-fund manager with a background in what he calls "machine reasoning" -- artificial intelligence -- who has created an algorithm that predicts the behavior of the markets and automatically trades online; it makes billions upon billions for the indifferent Hoffmann and his greedy partner, Hugo Quarry.

Quarry, by the way, is a little masterpiece of banking industry satire all by himself. "He had a first in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford," writes Harris gleefully, "an ex-wife and three children safely stowed in a gloomy Lutyens mansion in a drizzled fold of Surrey, and a ski chalet in Chamonix where he went in winter with whoever happened to be his girlfriend that weekend: an interchangeable sequence of clever, beautiful, undernourished females who were always discarded before there was any sign of gynecologists or lawyers."

The story begins with Hoffmann receiving an expensive Darwin first edition in the mail from a website he doesn't remember patronizing, then going to bed only to find that an intruder has somehow managed to gain entrance to his house, even though only he and a few trusted associates have the security codes. Shortly thereafter, he discovers a bank account in his name that he doesn't remember creating. At this point, if you do not at least suspect what is going on, then perhaps reading mysteries is not for you.

Hoffmann receives a blow to the head during his confrontation with the intruder, prompting Quarry; Hoffmann's wife, Gabrielle; and the investigating officer (an unlikable cop named Leclerc) to worry that his tales of invisible bank accounts and fictional transactions are the result of brain trauma and not conspiracy.

Harris' gift for the paranoid is much of the reason the book is worth reading, along with his enjoyably jaundiced take on the finance world. The hedge fund hires brainiac computer programmers from all over the world regardless of language or social skills, and so "Hoffmann's payroll occasionally resembled a United Nations conference on Asperger's syndrome"; perhaps the book's best passages describe gatherings of the fund's investors, a spectacularly contemptible hive of ultrawealthy eccentrics whose favorite pastime is whining about taxes they don't actually pay. His characters established, Harris slowly and expertly ratchets up the fear that something truly terrible is about to happen to Hoffmann. When the book's spasms of violence finally start, its fiery conclusion seems foregone.

Action moviemaker Paul Greengrass (who has optioned the novel) is thanked in the acknowledgments; it's easy to see why. The climax of "The Fear Index" is so perfectly paced it should be read with a bag of popcorn, and the story's problems -- unexplained plot points; Gabrielle's lack of personality -- fall by the wayside as the pyrotechnics start to bloom. Like the hedge fund around which it revolves, the novel relies too heavily on formula. But like the algorithm that powers the fund, that formula works.

Five brilliant paranoid thrillers

BY SAM THIELMAN, Special to Newsday

UBIK by Philip K. Dick (1969)

Dick's (arguably) best novel tracks security agent Joe Chip, whose employer Glen Runciter has died in an explosion . . . but keeps sending Chip messages from the great beyond. Or does he?

CAUGHT STEALING by Charlie Huston (2004)

Hank Thompson is just trying to take care of his neighbor's dog when the Russian mob starts asking him about money he's never had, and they're not about to fall for the old you've-got-the-wrong-guy dodge.

ROSEMARY'S BABY by Ira Levin (1967)

No, of course your husband isn't trying to secretly impregnate you with the spawn of the devil. Go back to bed.

SHUTTER ISLAND by Dennis Lehane (2003)

Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule investigate one of the strangest missing-persons cases you can imagine: a woman who's gone AWOL from an insane asylum on an island where everyone knows something they're not telling.

THE LAND OF LAUGHS by Jonathan Carroll (1980)

Teacher Thomas Abbey, out to write a biography of his favorite children's author, discovers something so strange in his hero's hometown that there's no way you'll guess it -- unless you read the spoilery jacket copy.

EXCERPT: "The Fear Index" by Robert Harris

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow. -- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

Dr. Alexander Hoffmann sat by the fire in his study in Geneva, a half-smoked cigar lying cold in the ashtray beside him, an anglepoise lamp pulled low over his shoulder, turning the pages of a first edition of "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" by Charles Darwin. The Victorian grandfather clock in the hall was striking midnight but Hoffmann did not hear it. Nor did he notice that the fire was almost out. All his formidable powers of attention were directed onto his book.

He knew it had been published in London in 1872 by John Murray & Co. in an edition of seven thousand copies, printed in two runs. He knew also that the second run had introduced a misprint -- "htat" -- on page 208. As the volume in his hands contained no such error, he presumed it must have come from the first run, thus greatly increasing its value. He turned it round and inspected the spine. The binding was in the original green cloth with gilt lettering, the spine ends only slightly frayed. It was what was known in the book trade as "a fine copy," worth perhaps $15,000. He had found it waiting for him when he returned home from his office that evening, as soon as the New York markets had closed, a little after ten o'clock. Yet the strange thing was, even though he collected scientific first editions and had browsed the book online and had in fact been meaning to buy it, he had not actually ordered it.

His immediate thought had been that it must have come from his wife, but she had denied it. He had refused to believe her at first, following her around the kitchen as she set the table, holding out the book for her inspection.

"You're really telling me you didn't buy it for me?"

"Yes, Alex. Sorry. It wasn't me. What can I say? Perhaps you have a secret admirer."

"You are totally sure about this? It's not our anniversary or anything? I haven't forgotten to give you something?"

"For God's sake, I didn't buy it, okay?"

It had come with no message apart from a Dutch bookseller's slip: "Rosengaarden & Nijenhuise, Antiquarian Scientific & Medical Books. Established 1911. Prinsengracht 227, 1016 HN Amsterdam, The Netherlands." Hoffmann had pressed the pedal on the waste bin and retrieved the bubble wrap and thick brown paper. The parcel was correctly addressed, with a printed label: "Dr. Alexander Hoffmann, Villa Clairmont, 79 Chemin de Ruth, 1223 Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland." It had been dispatched by courier from Amsterdam the previous day.

After they had eaten their supper -- a fish pie and green salad prepared by the housekeeper before she went home -- Gabrielle had stayed in the kitchen to make a few anxious last-minute phone calls about her exhibition the next day, while Hoffmann had retreated to his study clutching the mysterious book. An hour later, when she put her head round the door to tell him she was going up to bed, he was still reading.

She said, "Try not to be too late, darling. I'll wait up for you."

He did not reply. She paused in the doorway and considered him for a moment. He still looked young for forty-two, and had always been more handsome than he realised -- a quality she found attractive in a man as well as rare. It was not that he was modest, she had come to realise. On the contrary: he was supremely indifferent to anything that did not engage him intellectually, a trait that had earned him a reputation among her friends for being downright bloody rude -- and she quite liked that as well. His preternaturally boyish American face was bent over the book, his spectacles pushed up and resting on the top of his thick head of light brown hair; catching the firelight, the lenses seemed to flash a warning look back at her. She knew better than to try to interrupt him. She sighed and went upstairs.

Hoffmann had known for years that "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" was one of the first books to be published with photographs, but he had never actually seen them before. Monochrome plates depicted Victorian artists' models and inmates of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum in various states of emotion -- grief, despair, joy, defiance, terror -- for this was meant to be a study of Homo sapiens as animal, with an animal's instinctive responses, stripped of the mask of social graces. Born far enough into the age of science to be photographed, their misaligned eyes and skewed teeth nonetheless gave them the look of crafty, superstitious peasants from the Middle Ages. They reminded Hoffmann of a childish nightmare -- of grown-ups from an old-fashioned book of fairy tales who might come and steal you from your bed in the night and carry you off into the woods.

And there was another thing that unsettled him. The bookseller's slip had been inserted into the pages devoted to the emotion of fear, as if the sender specifically intended to draw them to his attention:

The frightened man at first stands like a statue motionless or breathless, or crouches down as if instinctively to escape observation. The heart beats quickly and violently, so that it palpitates or knocks against the ribs. . .

Hoffmann had a habit when he was thinking of cocking his head to one side and gazing into the middle distance, and he did so now. Was this a coincidence? Yes, he reasoned, it must be. On the other hand, the physiological effects of fear were so directly relevant to VIXAL-4, the project he was presently involved in, that it did strike him as peculiarly pointed. And yet VIXAL-4 was highly secret, known only to his research team, and although he took care to pay them well -- $250,000 was the starting salary, with much more on offer in bonuses -- it was surely unlikely any of them would have spent $15,000 on an anonymous gift. One person who certainly could afford it, who knew all about the project and who would have seen the joke of it -- if that was what this was: an expensive joke -- was his business partner, Hugo Quarry, and Hoffmann, without even thinking about the hour, rang him.

Excerpted from "The Fear Index" by Robert Harris. Copyright © 2011 by Robert Harris. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.