Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3868 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-04
• Released on: 2007-09-26
• Binding: Hardcover
• 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

BEACH READING
Standard fare, quite amusing and entertaining, better written than most political thrillers, although I cannot understand why Harris chose to write in an American style and voice. Completely implausible plot and some ridiculous diversions (e.g. sex with the ex-PM's wife), but I enjoyed it as I lay by the pool.

Terrific
I believed in the worlds I was being shown - politics, publishing - and in the characters populating them. I was totally gripped by the plot (which is well outlined in other reviews...), and found the final twists immensely satisfying.

The Ghost of Prime Minister Past
"The Ghost" by Robert Harris is the first-person account of an anonymous ghostwriter assigned to the memoirs of former P.M. Adam Lang following the mysterious death of the original ghostwriter and former long-time Downing St aide Mike McAra.

The book opens as a roman-a-clef. Adam Lang, now in retirement following his alliance with the U.S. in the War on Terror, is Tony Blair; his politically active lawyer wife is Cherie; and honest but bumbling McAra seems like John Prescott! For those who know the publishing world, there are also references to Transworld, Katie Price, Andy Macnab and so on, but when the narrator begins work on the prime ministerial memoirs the thriller begins to kick in.

I won't give away the plot, but it contains two good twists, the last of which, on the final page, atones for the deus ex machina that befalls one of the principal characters.

Some critics have called "The Ghost" a highbrow thriller, but I imagine, since Harris was once a journalist, these are just his mates bigging him up out of loyalty. "The Ghost" is actually that much more commercial vehicle - the middlebrow thriller.

However, it's wrong to be cynical about this book, because it's an enthralling read, with some good scenes and thought-provoking observations on the War on Terror.