Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33424 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
Big money lures a professional ghostwriter into a rush job - rewriting the memoirs of the former British prime minister in a month. By the way, the last guy on the job may have been murdered.Harris (Imperium, 2006, etc.) returns with an amusing, fast-paced thriller that inserts a non-political writer into the life of an out-of-office but still controversial British politician, Adam Lang, who bears a marked resemblance to Tony Blair. Purely coincidental, of course. The narrator is a ghostwriter who, teasingly, is never named. He's made a living turning the semi-reliable memories of a wide range of celebrities into readable "autobiographies," a highly specialized career that, with his Cambridge education, makes him the right man to earn $250,000 turning the turgid draft of Lang's memoirs into something someone would actually want to read. The publisher, having advanced $10,000,000 and committed to a publication date one month hence, is desperate. Lang's longtime political assistant wrote the wretched draft after much research, but either flung himself or was flung from the ferry to Martha's Vineyard, where the ex-PM is holed up with wife and staff in the publisher's cottage until the book is fixed. Just as the writer is getting a grasp on the work, Lang is charged by the World Court with war crimes for a deed he may have committed on behalf of the Yanks, who are still bogged down in Iraq. It's the perfect hook for the rewrite, but the charge puts the household in a world-class dither. And it sends the writer deeper into Lang's past. The more he learns, the less he likes Lang's long involvement with the Americans, a relationship that cooked him politically in Britain. And the less he comes to trust Lang's official memories. When he stumbles on materials collected by his late predecessor, it becomes clear that the dead biographer learned far too much about the politician - information that threatens everybody, including the ghostwriter.Very slick, rather tense, sophisticated and amusing. (Kirkus Reviews)

Sunday Times
`Truly thrilling'

Sunday Telegraph
`Harris has written a remarkable thriller'

Customer Reviews

Really enjoyable, easy read.
I have read a couple of Robert Harris' books, Enigma, Fatherland and Selling Hitler and this has been, after Enigma my favorite.

I'd say that this book is a good easy read that does'nt need to much concentration. I found that what I enjoyed most was not the plot but the discription of New England and the insight into how those in the public eye live.

The plot itself is ok but if I had to criticise the book I'd say that it just drifts along and lacks in any 'can't-wait-to-see-what-happens-next' feeling.

All in all I would recomend this book. It's an easy read. Harris fans should not expect the same as previous books.

Loved 'Enigma', liked 'Ghost'.

Holiday reading
Ghost is a very nicely written novel, it takes no effort to glide through the pages which shows the writing quality of the author. The book is a pretty good read and you cannot help but see the references to the government under Tony Blair. With a few twists and turns the story unfolds - not edge of your seat stuff but a good read.

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