Adam Rackley – 26 soldiers of lead

American Psycho has a British cousin. White Collar shines the torch of satire on the City's hyper-competitive nihilism.

Simon Evan-Cook, Citywire columnist and fund manager

London, 2012.

Six lives collide in pursuit of love, lust, violence and redemption.

Dan Trench is unravelling. When he’s not going through the motions of a life, he’s pining after his ex-fiancé and getting into fights. His chaotic path crosses with Gareth Eary, an old friend turned high-flying stockbroker whose success is built on a painful secret - one that draws him into the orbit of billionaire hedge fund boss Aurelius Blois. Gareth is offered a chance to change his life forever, but at a cost: dirty work and dangerous alliances.

Meanwhile, Dan’s romance with investment banker Marianne Bleekman ends in heartbreak. In her absence he disappears into the City’s violent underbelly. And now, with financial deceit and personal ruin playing out across investment bank trading floors and underground fight clubs, everyone is clawing for survival.

When greed, revenge, and sexual violence reach a brutal climax, Dan must decide. Will he find redemption in restraint, or in one final, devastating act.

-

The Book Guild, paperback, 28 March 2026Fiction, crime, thriller

Pre-order now

Incredible true stories from the limits of endurance, written by a man who's been there

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

More people have climbed Mount Everest than have rowed across the Atlantic. For more than seventy days, Adam Rackley and his rowing partner ate, slept and rowed in a boat seven meters long by two meters wide, in one of the world's most extreme environments. This is his story of adventure, endurance, and self-discovery.

They were following in the wake of pioneers. In 1896 George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen, a pair of Norwegian fisherman, crossed the 2,500 miles in a wooden fishing dory--and their record stood for 114 years. John Fairfax, a smuggler, a gambler, and a shark hunter, was the first to complete the feat singlehandedly in 1969. Others have followed; some have not survived the attempt. This is their story, too.

-

Viking, hardcover, 6 March 2014

Penguin, paperback, 7 August 2014

Non-fiction, rowing, sports history

Order now

Adam Rackley is one of the very few who has both the literary skill and the sensory intelligence to make the rest of us understand exactly what is out there, and why

Peter Nichols, author of A Voyage for Madmen

When I was seven my parents gave me a Royal 203 typewriter. I remember feeling so inspired by the promise of words and the possibility of the blank page.I’ve tried my hand at different things. I’ve been a fund manager in the City, a business school lecturer, a white-collar boxer and an Army officer. But I always come back to that

typewriter and those feelings of promise and possibility. I wrote the first draft of my novel White Collar on that Royal 203. I spent the early part of my career in Dundee, London and Mumbai, and now I live with my family in North Wales. My first book, Salt, Sweat, Tears was shortlisted for best new writer at the Cross British Sports Book Awards, 2015.

American Psycho has a British cousin. White Collar shines the torch of satire on the City's hyper-competitive nihilism.

Simon Evan-Cook, Citywire columnist and fund manager

London, 2012.

Six lives collide in pursuit of love, lust, violence and redemption.

Dan Trench is unravelling. When he’s not going through the motions of a life, he’s pining after his ex-fiancé and getting into fights. His chaotic path crosses with Gareth Eary, an old friend turned high-flying stockbroker whose success is built on a painful secret - one that draws him into the orbit of billionaire hedge fund boss Aurelius Blois. Gareth is offered a chance to change his life forever, but at a cost: dirty work and dangerous alliances.

Meanwhile, Dan’s romance with investment banker Marianne Bleekman ends in heartbreak. In her absence he disappears into the City’s violent underbelly. And now, with financial deceit and personal ruin playing out across investment bank trading floors and underground fight clubs, everyone is clawing for survival.

When greed, revenge, and sexual violence reach a brutal climax, Dan must decide. Will he find redemption in restraint, or in one final, devastating act.

-

The Book Guild, paperback, 28 March 2026Fiction, crime, thriller

Pre-order now

Incredible true stories from the limits of endurance, written by a man who's been there

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

More people have climbed Mount Everest than have rowed across the Atlantic. For more than seventy days, Adam Rackley and his rowing partner ate, slept and rowed in a boat seven meters long by two meters wide, in one of the world's most extreme environments. This is his story of adventure, endurance, and self-discovery.

They were following in the wake of pioneers. In 1896 George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen, a pair of Norwegian fisherman, crossed the 2,500 miles in a wooden fishing dory--and their record stood for 114 years. John Fairfax, a smuggler, a gambler, and a shark hunter, was the first to complete the feat singlehandedly in 1969. Others have followed; some have not survived the attempt. This is their story, too.

-

Viking, hardcover, 6 March 2014

Penguin, paperback, 7 August 2014

Non-fiction, rowing, sports history

Order now

Adam Rackley is one of the very few who has both the literary skill and the sensory intelligence to make the rest of us understand exactly what is out there, and why

Peter Nichols, author of A Voyage for Madmen

When I was seven my parents gave me a Royal 203 typewriter. I remember feeling so inspired by the promise of words and the possibility of the blank page.I’ve tried my hand at different things. I’ve been a fund manager in the City, a business school lecturer, a white-collar boxer and an Army officer. But I always come back to that

typewriter and those feelings of promise and possibility. I wrote the first draft of my novel White Collar on that Royal 203. I spent the early part of my career in Dundee, London and Mumbai, and now I live with my family in North Wales. My first book, Salt, Sweat, Tears was shortlisted for best new writer at the Cross British Sports Book Awards, 2015.

American Psycho has a British cousin. White Collar shines the torch of satire on the City's hyper-competitive nihilism.

Simon Evan-Cook, Citywire columnist and fund manager

London, 2012.

Six lives collide in pursuit of love, lust, violence and redemption.

Dan Trench is unravelling. When he’s not going through the motions of a life, he’s pining after his ex-fiancé and getting into fights. His chaotic path crosses with Gareth Eary, an old friend turned high-flying stockbroker whose success is built on a painful secret - one that draws him into the orbit of billionaire hedge fund boss Aurelius Blois. Gareth is offered a chance to change his life forever, but at a cost: dirty work and dangerous alliances.

Meanwhile, Dan’s romance with investment banker Marianne Bleekman ends in heartbreak. In her absence he disappears into the City’s violent underbelly. And now, with financial deceit and personal ruin playing out across investment bank trading floors and underground fight clubs, everyone is clawing for survival.

When greed, revenge, and sexual violence reach a brutal climax, Dan must decide. Will he find redemption in restraint, or in one final, devastating act.

-

The Book Guild, paperback, 28 March 2026Fiction, crime, thriller

Pre-order now

Incredible true stories from the limits of endurance, written by a man who's been there

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

More people have climbed Mount Everest than have rowed across the Atlantic. For more than seventy days, Adam Rackley and his rowing partner ate, slept and rowed in a boat seven meters long by two meters wide, in one of the world's most extreme environments. This is his story of adventure, endurance, and self-discovery.

They were following in the wake of pioneers. In 1896 George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen, a pair of Norwegian fisherman, crossed the 2,500 miles in a wooden fishing dory--and their record stood for 114 years. John Fairfax, a smuggler, a gambler, and a shark hunter, was the first to complete the feat singlehandedly in 1969. Others have followed; some have not survived the attempt. This is their story, too.

-

Viking, hardcover, 6 March 2014

Penguin, paperback, 7 August 2014

Non-fiction, rowing, sports history

Order now

Adam Rackley is one of the very few who has both the literary skill and the sensory intelligence to make the rest of us understand exactly what is out there, and why

Peter Nichols, author of A Voyage for Madmen

When I was seven my parents gave me a Royal 203 typewriter. I remember feeling so inspired by the promise of words and the possibility of the blank page.I’ve tried my hand at different things. I’ve been a fund manager in the City, a business school lecturer, a white-collar boxer and an Army officer. But I always come back to that

typewriter and those feelings of promise and possibility. I wrote the first draft of my novel White Collar on that Royal 203. I spent the early part of my career in Dundee, London and Mumbai, and now I live with my family in North Wales. My first book, Salt, Sweat, Tears was shortlisted for best new writer at the Cross British Sports Book Awards, 2015.

American Psycho has a British cousin. White Collar shines the torch of satire on the City's hyper-competitive nihilism.

Simon Evan-Cook, Citywire columnist and fund manager

London, 2012.

Six lives collide in pursuit of love, lust, violence and redemption.

Dan Trench is unravelling. When he’s not going through the motions of a life, he’s pining after his ex-fiancé and getting into fights. His chaotic path crosses with Gareth Eary, an old friend turned high-flying stockbroker whose success is built on a painful secret - one that draws him into the orbit of billionaire hedge fund boss Aurelius Blois. Gareth is offered a chance to change his life forever, but at a cost: dirty work and dangerous alliances.

Meanwhile, Dan’s romance with investment banker Marianne Bleekman ends in heartbreak. In her absence he disappears into the City’s violent underbelly. And now, with financial deceit and personal ruin playing out across investment bank trading floors and underground fight clubs, everyone is clawing for survival.

When greed, revenge, and sexual violence reach a brutal climax, Dan must decide. Will he find redemption in restraint, or in one final, devastating act.

-

The Book Guild, paperback, 28 March 2026Fiction, crime, thriller

Pre-order now

Incredible true stories from the limits of endurance, written by a man who's been there

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

More people have climbed Mount Everest than have rowed across the Atlantic. For more than seventy days, Adam Rackley and his rowing partner ate, slept and rowed in a boat seven meters long by two meters wide, in one of the world's most extreme environments. This is his story of adventure, endurance, and self-discovery.

They were following in the wake of pioneers. In 1896 George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen, a pair of Norwegian fisherman, crossed the 2,500 miles in a wooden fishing dory--and their record stood for 114 years. John Fairfax, a smuggler, a gambler, and a shark hunter, was the first to complete the feat singlehandedly in 1969. Others have followed; some have not survived the attempt. This is their story, too.

-

Viking, hardcover, 6 March 2014

Penguin, paperback, 7 August 2014

Non-fiction, rowing, sports history

Order now

Adam Rackley is one of the very few who has both the literary skill and the sensory intelligence to make the rest of us understand exactly what is out there, and why

Peter Nichols, author of A Voyage for Madmen

When I was seven my parents gave me a Royal 203 typewriter. I remember feeling so inspired by the promise of words and the possibility of the blank page.I’ve tried my hand at different things. I’ve been a fund manager in the City, a business school lecturer, a white-collar boxer and an Army officer. But I always come back to that

typewriter and those feelings of promise and possibility. I wrote the first draft of my novel White Collar on that Royal 203. I spent the early part of my career in Dundee, London and Mumbai, and now I live with my family in North Wales. My first book, Salt, Sweat, Tears was shortlisted for best new writer at the Cross British Sports Book Awards, 2015.