Crash

HE MUST FIND THE TRUTH . . . NO MATTER THE COST.

THE BRAND NEW THRILLER FROM BRITAIN'S TOP POLITICAL JOURNALIST AND BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WHISTLEBLOWER.
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London, 2007. It's summer in the City: the economy is booming, profits are up and the stock market sits near record highs.

But journalist Gil Peck is a lone voice worrying it can't last. Deep in the plumbing of the financial system, he has noticed strange things happening which could threaten the whole economy. But nobody wants to hear it: not the politicians taking credit for an end to boom and bust, not the bankers pocketing vast bonuses, not even Gil's bosses at the BBC, who think it's irrelevant.

When Gil gets a tip-off that a small northern bank has run out of money, everything changes. His report sparks the first run on a UK bank in 140 years. The next day, Marilyn Krol, a director of the Bank of England dies in an apparent suicide.

For Gil, it's personal. Marilyn was his lover: was his scoop connected to her suicide? Or is there something more sinister in her death? Gil is determined to find out.

The more he investigates, the more he is drawn into the rotten heart of the financial system, where old school ties and secret Oxbridge societies lubricate vast and illegal conflicts of interest. The whole economy has been built on a house of cards, and Gil is threatening to bring it down.

When simply reporting the facts can make or break fortunes, Gil has to ask himself: is he crossing the line between journalist and participant? Are his own conflicts of interest making him reckless? And in a world ruled by greed where nothing and no-one is too big to fail, what price will he pay for uncovering the truth?

PRAISE FOR ROBERT PESTON'S DEBUT THRILLER, THE WHISTLEBLOWER:

'Brilliant' - THE TIMES
'Cracking' - DAILY MAIL
'Winning' - SUNDAY TIMES
'A hell of a read' - OBSERVER
'Enthralling' - FINANCIAL TIMES
'Enjoyable, intelligent' - GUARDIAN
'A romping thriller' - INDEPENDENT
'A rollicking read' - EVENING STANDARD
'A gripping thriller' - DAILY EXPRESS
'Fascinating' - DAILY MIRROR
'Gripping' - RADIO TIMES
'Compelling' - THE SUN

Robert Peston is ITV's political editor, presenter of the politics show Peston, founder of the education charity, Futures for All (www.futuresforall.org), and vice president of Hospice UK. He has written five critically acclaimed non-fiction books, How Do We Fix This Mess?, Who Runs Britain?, Brown's Britain, How To Run Britain and WTF?, which was described by the Financial Times as 'mandatory reading' for anyone seeking to understand Brexit, Trump and the collapse of confidence in western liberalism. His first thriller, The Whistleblower, published by Zaffre, was 'brilliant' according to the Guardian and called 'a rollicking read' by the Evening Standard. Its sequel, The Crash, was praised as 'clever' by the Times and as 'fast paced' by the Financial Times.

For a decade until the end of 2015, he was at the BBC, as economics editor and business editor, and in the 1990s he was at the Financial Times, as political editor, financial editor and head of investigations. At the BBC he played a prominent role in exposing the causes and consequences of the credit crunch, banking crisis and Great Recession. Peston has won more than 30 awards for his journalism, including Journalist of the Year and Scoop of the Year (twice) from the Royal Television Society. Find him on his blog at itv.com/robertpeston, and on Substack and X as @peston. He hosts a podcast with Steph McGovern, The Rest is Money.