Robert Harris to Adapt His Own Novel, The Fear Index, for Film

Robert Harris's latest novel, The Fear Index, hasn't even been published, but he's already working on writing the film adaptation, to be directed by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Green Zone). The financial thriller will be published in the UK next month by Hutchinson, and in the US this coming January by Knopf.

The book features Dr. Alex Hoffmann, whose name is carefully guarded from the general public. But within the secretive inner circles of the ultra-rich, he is a legend — a visionary scientist whose computer software turns everything it touches into gold.

Together with his partner, an investment banker, Hoffmann has developed a revolutionary form of artificial intelligence that tracks human emotions, enabling it to predict movements in the financial markets with uncanny accuracy. His hedge fund, based in Geneva, makes billions.

But then in the early hours of the morning, while he lies asleep with his wife, a sinister intruder breaches the elaborate security of their lakeside house. So begins a waking nightmare of paranoia and violence as Hoffmann attempts, with increasing desperation, to discover who is trying to destroy him.

His quest forces him to confront the deepest questions of what it is to be human. By the time night falls over Geneva, the financial markets will be in turmoil and Hoffmann's world — and ours — transformed forever.

Several of Harris's books have been filmed, most recently the political thriller The Ghost Writer (based on his novel The Ghost) … though our personal favorite is the 2002 film adaptation of his 1995 novel Enigma.

(Source: The Telegraph.)