Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5139 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

The Times
`A master of the intelligent thriller... The Ghost is Harris back on sparkling form'

Sunday Times
`Truly thrilling'

Sunday Telegraph
`Harris has written a remarkable thriller'

Customer Reviews

Ghosted?
I bought Robert Harris' latest blockbuster, bundled with certified bestseller Enigma, for £3 and change from Tesco. At the time it seemed to good to be true. That turned out to be a fair assessment.

From the author that gave us Fatherland, this is a thoroughly disappointing outing. As I read I wondered whether I was missing a trick: was some message encoded in the pages that necessitated a clunky writing style and a poorly articulated, incredible plot? (I didn't notice one, but I confess to not being moved sufficiently to look very hard.) Was the leaden prose in reality a skilful characterisation of a mediocre jobbing ghostwriter? (Given how thin the characterisation otherwise - we don't even know the narrator's name, and Harris (clumsily) goes to some lengths to avoid telling us - I doubted it.) Was there an undelying figurative structure to which Harris wished his reader's attention drawn, not to be distracted by such trifles as elegant expression? (Not that I could see.) Perhaps this was a mis-guided attempt by a hitherto sober writer to inject some wit into his delivery? (Well - Perhaps.)

I don't think so. What, instead, I concluded was that this was a half-hearted book knocked-off in the teeth of an encroaching deadline, possibly not even by Harris himself. (Ghosted! Now wouldn't that be ironic!)

The Ghost has the ring of a contractual obligations novel, much of it sounding dictated - even phoned in - rather than written, flabbily plotted (many of the repeatedly, portentously, mentioned characters, such as a mysterious vietnamese gardener, fulfil no plot function at all) poorly paced (just as the tension is starting to get going, Harris completely deflates it and moves to what is effectively the novel's epilogue), and frankly incredible at any level. Yes, fiction requires the willing suspension of disbelief: but Harris makes so little effort to earn the reader's investment in the story that disbelief is suspended only grudgingly, and frequently not at all.

On the plus side, it's a quick read: it may require work setting aside ones scepticism of the plot, but cracking through the text requires no effort at all, and you'll be through before you know it.

But, of itself, that wasn't a ringing endorsement of a book last time I checked.

Olly Buxton

INVOKING THE GHOST OF LABOR WASTED
After a number of historic-fiction masterpieces, ROBERT HARRIS came back with a novel that, although a work of fiction, cuts too close to the bone for comfort. In a thinly veiled reference to the Prime Ministry of Tony Blair, a number of troublesome issues are raised.

For fear of spoiling the story one can only ask: why do democratically elected leaders take one after the other unpopular decisions? Who are they trying to please if (clearly) not the people that put them into office? Why even socialist/democratic/leftist parties once elected follow in the footsteps of the right-wing hawks they overthrew by popular demand?

As a piece of word-craft I found it not at par with HARRIS' previous work. As a novel of political possibility though I found it brilliant! It happens all the time in third world countries, why not in the central republics? After all, greed and ambitions are universal.

RECOMMENDED!

A cracking yarn
Although not an edge-of-your-seat page-turner, The Ghost more than repays its cover price. Tony Blair is not even thinly disguised as ex-PM Adam Lang, and Harris enjoys himself in nailing TB's mannerisms and affectations, while Lang's wife Ruth is considerably more interesting than Cherie. The action takes place in a wintry Martha's Vineyard, a curious limbo-like world far removed from the UK, which gives the unfolding action a strange dreamlike quality. A competent and frequently funny thriller, great holiday reading, with a reasonably effective twist in the closing pages. No, it's not as good as Fatherland or Archangel, but miles better than Engima and Pompeii.