The futures market, its trading rooms and the characters that inhabit them are cast into the spotlight for the first time by a brilliant new book that tracks the rise and $1 trillion fall of Navinder Singh Sarao, the trading genius that contributed to the 2010 Flash Crash.

Nav (as he is universally known) has passed into trading folklore as the Hound of Hounslow since his 2015 arrest but Flash Crash by Liam Vaughan goes back more than two decades to plot the emergence of the trading savant.

The book, released today, plots in forensic detail Nav’s path to a trading arcade above a supermarket in 2003, his mastery of trading futures (and the profits that came with it), arrest, extradition to the US and eventual incarceration in his parents’ home.

Flash Crash also shines a light on the murky world of the proprietary trading arcades that arose 20 years ago after the world’s iconic exchange pits were shuttered and before algorithmic trading made “point and click” traders an endangered species.

Flash Crash chronicles in vivid, readable prose the sights, sounds and smells of life in a busy trading arcade and the characters that frequented them in a must-read for anyone intrigued by the best trading story since Leeson went walkabout.

Vaughan, who first encountered Nav working as a crime correspondent for Bloomberg, said the story chimed with him because of the characters, and that it takes place in a short, now-closed window of a few years between the decline of the pits and the advent of algos.

He said: “What makes the book stand-out is that it is set on the periphery of the financial markets, in a quirky world populated by odd individuals. What appeals about this type of trading is you don’t have a boss, you don’t wear a suit so it attracts a certain sort of individual. The periphery is a great setting for a story.”

Vaughan, who has been a financial journalist for almost 20 years, added: “Nav’s story also coincides with an important moment in the financial markets. He joined Futex in 2003, when it was a brand new arcade that sprang up after the futures pits were closed. The arcades were set up by former Liffe traders but they appealed to a different type of character to the floor.”

The author continued: “Initially, no-one really knew what they were doing on the screens so there was a short-lived gold rush in which Nav made fortune. As the story unfolds however, we see the emergence of algorithmic and high-frequency trading which started to squeeze out the most gifted traders and that is, ultimately, the reason we see Nav doing what he’s charged with doing.”

Vaughan also said the rights to his excellent book have been purchased and work is already underway on a film: “When I was beginning the process of writing the book, Dev Patel read the pitch and signed up to play Nav. The rights were sold to independent film production company See-Saw Films and they are now working on a draft of the screenplay. I suspect there will be many iterations but the screenplay is in development.”

To order a copy of Flash Crash, click here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flash-Crash-Liam-Vaughan/dp/0008270392