'They told me I was born without fingerprints, ' Lynch said with a wry smile. 'Don't you think I'd make a great criminal?'

Mike Lynch's death was a tragic end to an extraordinary life. Dubbed "Britain's Bill Gates," he rose from humble beginnings to found an empire worth billions, only for it to collapse in acrimony. A maverick outsider who became a doyen of British business and a government adviser, he was extradited to the US in handcuffs to take on his accuser, the American corporate giant Hewlett-Packard. Facing seemingly impossible odds, he somehow won his fight for freedom. But even in death, his legal battles raged on.

Drawing on extensive research and exclusive access to key sources, award-winning journalist Katie Prescott follows the tech billionaire's dramatic rise and fall, through to his tragic death and the explosive legal proceedings that followed. The narrative reads like a morality tale of money, power, and deception, exposing the fault lines and subterfuge of high-stakes personal and corporate clashes.

With newly updated material on the very latest developments in the legal proceedings surrounding the sinking of the Bayesian, this is the definitive account of a unique life that serves as both a warning and an inspiration.