'Excellent, meticulously researched biography' – The Guardian
'Katie Prescott's account could hardly be bettered' – Literary Review
'My book of the year' – Martin Vander Weyer, The Spectator
'A highly readable book' – Financial Times
Named one of the Times and Sunday Times 'Best Books of 2025'

A maverick outsider. An improbable life. An even more improbable death.
Discover the real story of Mike Lynch, Britain’s enigmatic billionaire.

On the morning of 19^th August 2024, the Bayesian yacht tragically sank off the coast of Sicily, taking with it the lives of Mike Lynch, his daughter and five others. Hours earlier, Lynch’s associate and co-defendant in one of the biggest fraud cases in Silicon Valley history, Stephen Chamberlain, was hit by a car in Cambridge and killed.

The odds of these two deaths occurring together were estimated at four in one billion.

Drawing on extensive research and exclusive access to key sources, award-winning Times journalist Katie Prescott forensically explores the life and death of this elusive maverick. Prescott guides us from Lynch’s humble beginnings, through his meteoric rise to CEO of Autonomy, and beyond to a vicious legal battle lasting more than a decade following the 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for more than £11bn. A truly brilliant feat of investigative reporting, this is a tale where nothing is quite as it appears.

'Totally gripping . . . A real-life story that reads like a novel' – Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland

'There is an old saying that most journalists have a bad book in them . . . Katie Prescott isn’t one of them. If this was a film script no one would believe it' – Kamal Ahmed, journalist and author of Life and Times of a Very British Man

'A meticulously researched glimpse into the dark side of tech business in the UK . . . Riveting' – Parmy Olson, bestselling author of Supremacy

There is an old saying that most journalists have a bad book in them . . . Katie Prescott isn’t one of them. If this was a film script no one would believe it -- Kamal Ahmed, journalist and author of Life and Times of a Very British Man
Totally gripping . . . A real-life story that reads like a novel -- Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland
A meticulously researched glimpse into the dark side of tech business in the UK . . . Riveting -- Parmy Olson, bestselling author of Supremacy
This gripping book, with its tragic ending, is a major achievement -- Rory Cellan-Jones, journalist and former BBC News Technology Correspondent
Gripping . . . Essential reading for anyone interested in the future of tech, finance and transatlantic capitalism -- Ed Conway, Economics Editor at Sky News and bestselling author of Material World
All the twists and turns of a top-notch thriller -- Steph McGovern, journalist and BBC/Channel 4 Presenter
One of the most astonishing business stories of our time -- Duncan Mavin, bestselling author of Pyramid of Lies and Meltdown
Excellent, meticulously researched biography * The Guardian *
A highly readable book * Financial Times *
My book of the year -- Martin Vander Weyer, The Spectator
Katie Prescott's account could hardly be bettered * Literary Review *

Katie Prescott is the technology business editor at The Times and a weekly columnist for the newspaper’s award-winning business section. She is the co-host of The Times Tech Podcast and won ‘Tech Commentator of the Year’ at the UK Tech Awards in 2024. A regular on Times Radio, she is a familiar voice to millions of listeners after a decade reporting for the BBC and presenting the business news on Radio 4’s Today. Prescott studied Modern Languages at Pembroke College, Oxford, and now lives where she grew up in London with her two daughters.