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So much for escapism.

Clem Chambers' debut novel The Armageddon Trade makes the Credit Crunch seem like a blip on the financial radar. Bankers being Public Enemy Number One, it's no surprise to find Chambers - a stocks and shares CEO - warning us that the apocalypse will be caused by the same highly paid gamblers who have got us all in our current fiscal mess. But while monetary meltdown is a fact, the events of The Armageddon Trade are much more in the realms of 'speculative fiction'. If H G Wells were still on the scene, no doubt he'd be penning something like this.

It's the very near future (actually post-credit crunch, so maybe not so near) and über-trader Max Davas is shocked to discover his computer models telling him in a year's time every tradable commodity will be worthless. Gold, oil, wheat, coffee - everything zero dollars.

Meanwhile in a London Dockland banking house, ex 'teaboy' Jim (AKA Ken, short for Kenco) dazzles his colleagues with an instinctive ability to predict the future. And he's just as worried as Davas.

Part science-fiction, part Grisham thriller, The Armageddon Trade plays out its doomy prophecies with unerring skill. And while the myriad computer tech-speak clearly excites the author more than his readers, there is no doubting he knows what he's talking about. The prose is basic, the characters predictable, but the story's the thing here, and it's a real page-turner.

File it under the same heading as Alex Scarrow's Last Light and pray Chambers isn't as prescient as he thinks he is.

Mark Campbell

The Armageddon Trade

Clem Chambers

No Exit Press, £10.99, 9781842432983