Cashback

England's world-famous folk hero lives on in the computer age, as brilliant Oxford mathematician Jonathan Hood, for obvious reasons known as Robin, sets out to prove to the world's banking community that its encryption security systems are vulnerable to attack. He first of all succeeds in beating the chip and PIN system used for the hole-in-the-wall cash dispensers, and then manages to break down the internationally used security system. While he and his team work on developing a more robust system, Robin determines to right a few wrongs round the world before marketing his new computer programme as a replacement. Helpless Governments look on as anxious banks struggle to find out who is behind the massive secret withdrawals from their customers' accounts. Using the Swiss banking system, Robin Hood and his band of computer scientists manage to reimburse a team of Russian mathematicians, exploited by an unscrupulous US computer giant, while white farmers evicted by the corrupt regime in Zimbabwe also receive compensation, at the expense of Ministers and other senior officials whose bank accounts are emptied and hoards of diamonds hijacked. An intriguing tale of computer warfare waged against corruption has an unexpected twist in the tail, which leaves the reader to work out his own conclusion.

• Literature & Fiction