Review: The Ghost

Harris’ ripped-from-the-headlines plot (the design motif for the back of the book even features torn newsprint) puts former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, oops, I mean fictional former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, in the hot seat.

Lang, thoroughly hated at home for his inexplicable enthusiasm for the policies of George Bush, has accepted the loan of a well-fortified Martha’s Vineyard estate to reflect and work on his $10 million memoirs. But then his longtime staffer and rather inept ghostwriter, Michael McAra, goes missing off the ferry from the mainland and drowns. There was a lot of booze in his blood and accident or suicide is the verdict.

And so the unnamed narrator, a professional, rather cynical, apolitical ghostwriter to fading celebrities is called in to rescue the book and given an impossibly short time to come up with a juicy, readable bestseller. From the beginning our hero finds the cloak-and-dagger a bit much. The contents of the manuscript are closely guarded and his work is impeded by not being able to take the thing off the premises (he refuses to stay with the subject he’s ghosting).

Then a former staffer accuses Lang of seizing suspected terrorists in Pakistan and handing them over to the CIA, a crime under British and international law. The World Court may try Lang for war crimes. Suddenly his book is a much hotter prospect.

But our narrator knows that the memoir, such as it is, is dry as dust. McAra, cobbled Lang’s life together from documents, and even new interviews with the charismatic, actorish Lang have not provided much else of interest, though the man certainly is as personable as his wife is prickly.

As he pours over McAra’s work and speculates about his subjects, he stumbles on some information that doesn’t quite fit. And this is the tiny thread that may unravel a vast web of conspiracy reaching deep into the past.

Which is pretty much what you’d expect. The whole book is pretty much what you’d expect – competently constructed from the man who brought us “Enigma” and “Fatherland” – but over-the-top and only modestly suspenseful. What’s most surprising is its almost actionable resemblance to Tony and Cherie Blair.

Apparently Harris is a former friend of Blair’s, now quite disillusioned, and his book has created a sensation in Britain, though Harris consistently denies any relation between Lang and Blair. Maybe you have to be British to get it.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Lynn Harnett

Book Review: The Ghost