<i>‘Imagine a system where the biggest, most powerful players get to tell the regulators and the exchanges who to go after based on who is taking money off them,’ says one prop trader. ‘Welcome to the futures market.’</i>

Welcome to the big bad world of trading where millions are made and lost in a day.This non-fiction account by journalist Liam Vaughan traces one smart man's genius in bringing the financial markets to it's knees.

Navinder Sarao is the socially awkward trading prodigy who made millions from his small bedroom in his parent's house in UK. Grown from the traditional click and trade trading desks - he finds the game has changed thanks to High Frequency Trading (HFT) programs and algorithms which play on milliseconds of advantage. In a David-vs-Goliath story, Nav builds his own logic which allowed him to take on the giants.

May 6, 2010, trillion dollars of valuation was lost in 3-4 hours of trading. Nav's trading practices was just one reason (5-6 mins), but then he is dubbed as the man who caused flash crash. The book goes beyond that and tells his entire story and the story of the investigation. A lot to learn and the author does a commendable job of simplifying the terminologies without dumbing it down.

Some parts could have been edited like Nav's investments and his advisors who are skimming him. Other than that, it is a complete story and Mr.Vaughan has done a good work of making it a script worthy of a movie.

A well written non-fiction that reads like a novel.

Note: I would like to thank Netgalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for providing the ARC of the book

Clearly intensively researched, this is an informative, detailed look at the 2010 flash crash of the stock market, and the man who was ultimately decided to be to blame.

Flash Crash is probably not the brightest book to opt to read when our economy is shrinking seismically due to our current predicament. It feels very ironic to be publishing it right now when it couldn't be be any more relevant and timely. Of course the reasoning is very different from the flash crash of May 6, 2010. Many of the missing details have been filled in by the author and it is clear he has carried out extensive research into the topic. It quickly emerges as a real and quite surprising page-turner.

It explores the issues that led up to one of the contemporary United States’s most devastating trillion-dollar stock market crashes in history lasting a mere 36 minutes with a significant portion of the blame being laid at the door of British financier Navinder Singh Sarao. He was arrested for market manipulation but was only sentenced to a year of house arrest due to his cooperation with authorities.he appears to have been made an example of given his crimes are the same crimes being committed by traders to this day with no repercussions.

I have to admit that at times this felt like fiction; in fact it felt like a political/economic thriller with some incredible tension and a building up of suspense and unlike most nonfiction I raced through quite a few of the interesting sections; it's a testament to Vaughan's writing skills that it read so easily. It’s fascinating, well informed and will appeal to a wider audience than just those with an interest in the stock market. The writing is fluid and the whole book is a compulsively readable rollercoaster of peaks and troughs along the way. The perfect phrase to accompany this book? The truth really is stranger than fiction...

A revealing look at the international market crash that occurred a few years ago.An eye opening look at the causes and the man who was in charge.For anyone interested or invested in the market this will be a warning a scary warning for you.#netgalley#4thestate.