1st Publication date August 1985 United Kingdom Mandarin
Paperback Publication date 1987 Methuen ISBN 041314190X 5pp Forms
Paperback Publication date 1990 Mandarin ISBN 0749304173 288pp 178 x 111mm
Paperback Publication date 1991 Mandarin ISBN 074931012X 287pp 178 x 111mm
From book cover
Swift is the satellite communication system that handles interbank transactions. It is hack-proof. Or is it? A group of determined computer experts set out to penetrate the satellite communication system that controls the transfers of billions of dollars each day.
or
SWIFT is the organisation controlling a satellite through which run all the currency transactions between London and New York. A disaffected gangster gathers a team of experts to break into the system and carry out the biggest theft in history.
Or
A small explosion: the greatest crime of all time.
There is a satellite through which, daily, pass all the interbank transactions between London and New York, currencies to the value of billions of pounds - moving not as bank notes, but as vulnerable streams of electrons. This, the most vital computer system in existence, is operated by SWIFT, guardians of the system on which depends the delicate stability of the worlds currencies. And one man has a plan to destroy it.
That man is Charlie Rose, disaffected mobster boss with millions at his disposal. Assisted by a Soviet Tass correspondent with his own motives to pursue, and a brilliant but psychotic computer programmer, Rose has the audacity, the power and the driving will to dare the biggest, most sophisticated act of theft ever conceived ...
Dave's comment
This is the book that I have now read even if it has dated a little, but a good story is always a good story. I wonder if this could be updated and expanded? which is what James Follett has done with some of his other early books.
Author James Follett comments
" Like so many thrillers, SWIFT has been overtaken by events. Namely: the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless it does stand up very well. Hacking was a relatively new science, if one may call it that, when I wrote the book. " James Follett
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