« 52 Books in 52 Weeks - December 2008 | Main | 1000 novels everyone must read: Science Fiction & Fantasy »
January 19, 2009
The Ghost - Robert Harris (Review)
The Ghost - Robert Harris
My first book of 2009, and not a promising start. His first book "Fatherland" appealed to the alternate history nerd inside me, and wasn't a bad detective story. But this is a watery, weak affair that seems to stumble along trying to find excitement, and even when there is some, it manages to turn the volume down and play it in slow motion.
The narrator/hero of this story is a ghostwriter by profession. I don't think we ever get to know his name, which is a clever trick by Harris - ghostwriters of course are never mentioned on the covers of the books they have 'written'.
He gets the job of writing the autobiography of former Prime Minister of Britain, Adam Lang. The previous person who tried to do this drowned, suicide assumed, but we know that it must be a suspicious death.
Lang and his wife are obviously grotesque parodies of Tony and Cherie Blair, which oddly enough makes this book less interesting rather than more.
So the writer goes to Martha's Vineyard to meet Lang, and spends a short time interviewing him as a political crisis looms. Gradually he uncovers irregularities in Lang's past, and starts to wonder whether his life may be in danger too.
It sounds like a good book, but it's clumsily handled. Characters are cardboard cutouts, and perform randomly as the plot requires. I was reminded of the author Frederick Forsyth for some reason as I read through; it seems like his kind of plot, and I wished someone with his skill had tackled it instead.
Buy it here, or not, whatever. I'd advise against it.
Posted by se71 at January 19, 2009 05:01 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)