From the unmistakable Robert Maxwell to the quiet big money dealings of the Roux Brothers - from the diplomatic games of Tiny Rowland to the laid-back '60s approach of Richard Branson - the City is revealed as a hornets' nest of wheeling and dealing with fortunes to be made or lost.

   There is the Turkish Cypriot cunning of Asil Nadir; the no-lose risks of the world's thoroughbred king Robert Sangster; the opportunism of Jacob Rothschild; James Hanson and Gordon White and their Hanson Trust as take-over winners; Gerald Ronson and his Heron Corp and how to lose the take-over battle yet still win the war; the 'mysteri- ous' Dr Marwan; ex-magician Paul Raymond on sex and real estate; the flamboyant oil baron David Thieme; Lloyd's outcast Ian 'Goldfinger' Posgate; the best self-publicist in Europe, Clive Sinclair; the only British retailer who might just conquer America, Terence Conran; and others.

   This extremely upbeat, highly readable yet deadly serious look at the City's high-flyers is for anyone interested in big business, and everyone interested in the personalities who make the headlines.

   The Risk Takers lifts the men who make those headlines off the front page and puts them under the microscope to reveal for the very first time in depth, just what makes them tick.