The credit crunch has spawned a new genre of book publishing. Titles fall into two camps, either attempting to explain how the financial crisis happened, or equipping readers with information to navigate their way through the resulting turmoil.

How I Caused the Credit Crunch is a fictional story that traces seven years at the forefront of the credit markets and tells the story of how an Oxford graduate finds himself in command of vast sums of other people’s money.

Author Tetsuya Ishikawa turned to writing in May 2008 when he was made redundant from Morgan Stanley. During his career as a specialist credit banker he structured and sold credit products to investors globally.

Ishikawa uses human anecdotes to describe the rise and fall of the market without resorting to technical language. The stories of personal excess are incredible and are exceeded only by the appetite that corporate investors developed for credit products.

It’s a thought provoking page turner that will broaden your knowledge of the financial sector and leave you to draw your own conclusions as to who caused the credit crunch. That Ishikawa played his part there can be no doubt.