SHORT-LISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Wall Street Journal’s award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister story of how a math genius named Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system ignited one of the greatest financial scandals in history. The paperback edition includes a new chapter discussing further fallout from the scandal.

In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the world’s largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor–the London interbank offered rate, which determines interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide–was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of shadowy team that used hook and crook to take over the process and set rates that made them a fortune, no matter the cost to others. Among the motley crew was a French trader nicknamed Gollum ; the broker Abbo, who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a Kazakh chicken farmer turned something short of financial whiz kid; an executive called Clumpy because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed Big Nose. Eventually known as the Spider Network, Hayes’s circle generated untold riches –until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.

Praised as reading like a fast-paced John le Carre thriller (New York Times), compelling (Washington Post) and jaw-dropping (Financial Times), The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but a provocative examination of a financial system that was warped and shady throughout.