Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Ghost: A Novel
    The Ghost: A Novel
    The Ghost: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Ghost: A Novel

    Written by Robert Harris

    Narrated by Roger Rees

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    From the bestselling author of Fatherland and Imperium comes The Ghost Writer, an extraordinarily auspicious thriller of power, politics, corruption, and murder—now a major motion picture starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan.

    The role of a ghostwriter is to make his client look good, not to uncover the truth. But what happens when the client is a major political figure, and the truth could change the course of history? Adam Lang, the controversial former prime minister of Britain, is writing his memoirs. But his first ghostwriter dies under shocking circumstances, and his replacement—whose experience lies in portraying aging rock stars and film idols—knows little about Lang’s inner circle. Flown to join Lang in a secure house on the remote shores of Martha’s Vineyard in the depths of winter, cut off from everyone and everything he knows, he comes to realize he should never have taken the job.

    It’s not just his predecessor’s mysterious death that haunts him, but Adam Lang himself. Deep in Lang’s past are buried shocking secrets. Secrets with the power to alter world politics. Secrets with the power to kill.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 23, 2007
    ISBN9780743569637
    Author

    Robert Harris

    Robert Harris is the author of Act of Oblivion, Pompeii, Enigma, and Fatherland. He has been a television correspondent with the BBC and a newspaper columnist for London’s Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph. His novels have sold more than ten million copies and been translated into thirty languages. He lives in Berkshire, England, with his wife and four children. 

    Related to The Ghost

    Related audiobooks

    Thrillers For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Trouble Brews In Minnesota

      Jul 29, 2019

      Edith and Helen Calder haven’t spoken in decades. The sisters’ rift began after the death of their father, who left all the money from the family’s farm to Helen so she could fulfill her dream of opening a brewery. In J. Ryan Stradal’s The Lager Quee

      1 min read

    • Article

      Kidnapped!

      Mar 8, 2023

      Kidnapped!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Those Who Left Us: Select Literary Obituaries of 2017

      Jan 10, 2018

      Poets, editors, songwriters, teachers, journalists, novelists—some great writers and some under-sung ones left us this year. Here, in chronological order of their deaths, is a selective compendium of literary obituaries from 2017.     Bhara

      15 min read

    • Article

      Hey, Necromancer!

      Sep 18, 2018

      Hey, Necromancer!
      8 min read

    • Article

      Searching for Ms. Miller

      Oct 10, 2020

      Searching for Ms. Miller
      4 min read

    • Article

      Holy Week: Overcome

      Mar 14, 2023

      Holy Week: Overcome
      24 min read

    • Article

      Who Murdered Tupac Shakur? Only One Man Knows For Sure

      Aug 6, 2023

      The 1990s music scene produced two moments of great darkness. If the 1994 death of Kurt Cobain somehow symbolised young white alienation, the murder of Tupac Shakur two years later continues to resonate, not just because it was another deep and painf

      11 min read

    • Article

      On the Oldest Road: U.S. 1, Robert Kramer, the Buick, and Me

      Nov 12, 2020

      The highway is a monument to the American lust for the hideous, the delight in ugliness for its own sake. The post On the Oldest Road: U.S. 1, Robert Kramer, the Buick, and Me appeared first on The Millions.

      10 min read

    • Article

      Taking a Prattfall

      Aug 21, 2022

      Taking a Prattfall
      3 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Jul 15, 2021

      Further to Jenny Randles detailing the Oz-factor [FT398:30-31], I outline a strange experience with multiple witnesses. I had a chance to revisit the site of the event with my children and this sparked off a need to record what happened. In 1977 I wa

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Bill Morris

      Dec 15, 2019

      I grew suspicious Isenberg was writing a cleverly coded takedown of Trump, but I realized that was unlikely because the book was published five months before the 2016 election. The post A Year in Reading: Bill Morris appeared first on The Millions.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Richard Babcock

      Nov 7, 2020

      Richard Babcock
      2 min read

    • Article

      Outsiders, Outcasts, Hustlers: A Year Reporting on the Modern-Day Frontier

      Nov 29, 2018

      The drive north into the oilfield at night showed the faint slopes of buttes ringed in sepia and burnt orange, then a drapery of glittering lights, civilization rising. Semi-trucks blared past the traffic cones and half-built apartments and hotels. I

      10 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Ghost

    3.5/5

    670 ratings50 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is the first Robert Harris book that I have read. I found it very entertaining and intriguing. I will, of course, be reading more of Harris' books as I really like his writing style. This book was a real page-turner and I loved the ending!
    • 5/5
      I REALLY LOVED this audiobook. I listen to so many and never "read" a book anymore it's hard to imagine ever reading one again. Listening to the so-called voices brings the book alive. This audiobook just got better and better. I love this author. I've never been disappointed and it's hard to say much about the book other than a British ghostwriter is hired to write the memoirs of an ex-British Prime Minister. To say more once you've heard the whole book would be wrong. Well, I suppose saying that as the story goes along it really becomes thrilling and suspenseful. Truly.
      There was a scene that should have been cut but I can say that I was sorry the story ended but it ended at the point it should. I intend to immediately find another Harris book I haven't read. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
    • 5/5
      An exception book, well written and thoughtful, like all of Robert Harris’s works. Also an excellent narration
    • 4/5
      Fairly enjoyable. Sort of a mystery drama, but without a super powered main character.
    • 3/5
      Adam Lang, ex-Prime Minister, is writing his memoirs. Or to be more honest, he needs a ghostwriter. Someone to do some research, to rewrite Lang’s memories into a story. Enter our unnamed-narrator1. More used to celebrity biographies our narrator is keen to enter the world of politics. It means a huge amount of money, although he only has four weeks to churn out the book.

      It should be too hard, his agent assures him that the memoir is pretty much already written, it just needs a bit of polishing after the death of the original ghostwriter.

      But such an east job wouldn’t make for a very entertaining novel, would it?

      It turns out the Prime Minister has secrets. Secrets that are starting to come to the fore. The War on Terror is ongoing, what role did Land play in landing the British in the middle of it. And what about torture and rendition. Was he involved? Did McAra, the previous writer, uncover a secret he really shouldn’t have? and did it get him killed?

      Reading this book it is fairly obvious that Land is a fictionalised Tony Blair. I never liked him, that evil smirk put me off, and I’m getting the impressions that Harris doesn’t like him much either. And he really doesn’t like Cherie Blair. But the questions the book raises are serious ones, and yet I don’t think that the book ever actually took them seriously, apart from how they ratcheted up the tension.

      The whole idea of torture as being of use in this so-called “war on terror”, that’s a big issue. Here is just the secret to be hidden. It isn’t an issue at all.

      So that aspect is a little disappointing.

      Also, I don’t think much of his portrayal of women. Of course no one gets much development here, not even our unnamed narrator. Sure he changes, but only because of the fear of death. He never really looks at his life or how anything like that. He is a bit of a nobody, and yet he has all the women interested in him, of course!

      I don’t think I’ve ever read a book by Harris before. This was well written in that I was entertained and kept interested all through it. I wouldn’t say no to another, but I wouldn’t be rushing out to pick up another by him.
    • 2/5
      Ein sehr ermüdendes Buch, das mich überhaupt nicht gefesselt hat.
    • 5/5
      I've probably missed all the political implications of this contemporary thriller (see more), but it certainly is a good read. We never find out who the ghost writer is, but he finds out that his predecessor has recently died, and that he must work on the manuscript in the house where his subject, a recently unseated British prime minister, is staying. Not only that, but the timeline for completing the work is incredibly short. The ghost writer realises that this is yet another boring autobiography. There is no personal interest to hook the reader and he feels that he will need to cull much of the existing text and find something new as the opening hook. In his quest to be thorough he discovers that much of the text written by his predecessor is not true at all. And then an international news item brings the "hook".The text is superbly narrated by Michael Jayston.
    • 4/5
      I saw the movie first; then read the book. The movie follows closely with the book and enjoy Robert Harris's writing. He knows how to integrate suspense into the plot. The book is written in first person (the ghost writer) and the author is writing an autobiography for an ex prime minister. the previous ghost writer alleged committed suicide; however, the current writer suspects foul play. I throughly enjoyed the book.
    • 4/5
      I like Robert Harris and have read several of his books, many of which have an historical grounding. As this was promoted as being different, I avoided it, but one day started up the audiobook and I was hooked. The premise is quite interesting. A ghost writer, never identified by name, has been hired to complete a famous ex-prime minister’s memoirs after the apparent suicide of the former “ghost.” There’s a very short deadline, and he’s dismayed to see the 600 pages left by his predecessor are virtually unreadable, boring in the extreme.Then things get a bit complicated as Adam Lang, the subject of the memoir and supposed author, is indicted by the International Criminal Court for having permitted and encouraged the rendition and torture of suspects following the 9/11 attacks. I suppose it’s the height of irony that the country that created the Nuremberg courts, trials and executions, the United States, has withdrawn from participation in the ICC, along with the Sudan (its president was indicted) and Israel, although being one of the signatories. That it is perhaps afraid of subjecting its leaders to international sanctions for committing war crimes puts the U.S. in good company with countries like China, Iraq and North Korea. I suspect it’s because Congress fears possible indictment of GW Bush for his complicity in the treatment and torture of prisoners. In any case, the indictment of Lange (Tony Blair, anyone?) makes the memoirs, already sought after, hot property, indeed.Terrorism has been a real boon to those in power providing a rationale for obtaining more control over their “subjects,” while providing them with more mechanisms, in the name of security, of course, to remove themselves even further from the electorate in bomb/gas-proof limousines, guards, etc. That is a sub-theme of the book that has a host of relevant meanings for the word “ghost.” (Note that the book has been reissued under the title “Ghost Writer’ which loses much of the impact of the double meanings.) Some interesting discussion on the relationship between truth, memoirs, ghost writers, and politics. I found it hard to put down, listening while walking the dog, sorting stamps, cleaning, etc. My only complaint was the ending , the justification for which seemed thin. Good read, nevertheless.
    • 5/5
      Another great book from Robert Harris. Corruption, murder, politics, allegations of war crimes and a hastily brought in ghost writer hired to complete the manuscript of a British ex-Prime Minister make the basis of this tale.Everything seems to be going well until, albeit a little odd until he finds some of the old, dead, writers belongings which raise questions to which answers are not so easily found - Plenty of intrigue and page turning mystery to keep the reader interested - it certainly kept my attention finishing it in one afternoon to evening.Would recommend. Fatherland is probably still my favourite Harris book though.
    • 4/5
      This is clearly a shadow version of Tony Blair after his ouster, apart from the ending. It was made into a movie in 2010 with Pierce Brosnan which I did see at the time.
    • 3/5
      I don't read many thrillers, and frankly I didn't know there was such a thing as a "British thriller," but you can blame Nick Hornby for this. It was gripping, and well-plotted - as these things go, anyway - and kept me interested throughout. It comes off a tiny bit whiny, at least to this American, but then we again we made The Patriot so we probably had it coming.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book with its not very subtle satire of Blair. The plot is slightly far fetched but as usual Robert Harris keeps you reading along
    • 5/5
      Here's why I loved this. Great plotting. Really nice clever twist at the end that left me going "Oh yeah, I get it." And erudite writing with lots of clever and funny allusions, including the way Harris gives names to characters that hint at real people.I realised I had seen the movie based on this book after a few pages, but fortunately, if the movie followed the plot line exactly, I had forgotten and the neat ending was a pleasing surprise when it came.
    • 4/5
      This book felt quite different from the other thrillers I've read of Harris, but retains much of his hallmarked style. It has a contemporary setting, and the plot revolves around the former British prime-minister (a character loosely based on Tony Blair) being indicted for war crimes, and is written in the first-person from the perspective of the author charged with ghost-writing the prime-minister's memoirs. (Coincidentally, I'm currently reading Blair's memoirs!) As always, the pace is good, and the writing crisp. My disappointment stems from the fact that the final plot-twist is really enough of a twist, and I was left feeling slightly short-changed.
    • 2/5
      A pageturner who got away with it, but nothing more
    • 2/5
      (Note: I'm using the true ranking system here--I gave it 2 stars because it was OK. Not great, not terrible--OK.)

      This is the story of a man who's recruited to "finish" the memoirs of the former British Prime Minister after the previous ghostwriter has died under mysterious circumstances. Needless to say, he gets way more than he bargained for...

      There are only a few cases in which the movie is at least as good as the book. In this case, the movie was better. I understand why the author never specifies the name or gives any description of the writer (ghost, get it?), but it gives the narrative a detached quality despite being written in first person. In addition, the political intrigue is not well rendered--it's cliched cloak-and-dagger, and it would have benefited from some fleshing out of the simplistic plot. For example, it would have been nice to see a couple examples of the villain in action or communicating with coconspirators. (Being vague so as to avoid spoilers.)

      If you're looking for a complex, far-flung Ludlumesque caper, this isn't it. But it's a perfectly fine airplane book.
    • 5/5
      I love the page turning quality of this book. Some of the plot unfolds as expected and just as you are getting comfortable with the ride, you take an unexpected turn.(I love the use of the SatNav to take the character on his journey). Although the film does come close to the book, I felt the ending of the book was better. I didn't see the ending, although I was quite certain where we were going - in the end I was wrong.Robert Harris was asked if he had had any difficult with getting the legal team at the publishers to agree to the text, at the Oxford Literary Festival - he said that know he could and would be successfully sued if any politician took it to court, however he didn't think that would happen - it didn't.Lovely flowing prose.
    • 3/5
      After the recent retired Prime Minister of Britain writing assistant for his memoire/autobiography washes up dead on the shores of Martha's Vineyard - he is replaced by a non political ghost writer. Secrets unfold and the accidental drowning now appears more like foul play. Race is on to discover who had something bid enough to hide that murder was the answer? Amidst a front page political scandal, the ghost tries to unravel the truth.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed Harris's first novel, Fatherland, and adored his second, Enigma; I can't quite work out why it's taken me so long to read another. Whatever, the wait was worth it.

      Our nameless protagonist/narrator is called in as ghostwriter for the memoirs of a recently retired British Prime Minister who is Not Tony Bliar: you know he's Not Tony Bliar because his name is Adam Lang. However, this PM is widely loathed in the UK, not least because he was craven poodle to a war-criminal US Administration that invaded a Middle Eastern country for corrupt reasons; bells might be ringing, no? Because the Brits have come to hate his guts, Adam Lang and his wife Ruth (who is Not Cherie), plus entourage, are holed up in Martha's Vineyard. Our hero flies across to join them and prepares to do his stuff; but then he stumbles across the notes and documentation used by his predecessor in the job, who was mysteriously drowned. There are conniptions galore and lots of wonderfully catty observations from our narrator until it becomes evident to all that Adam Lang was a CIA plant, the most successful of all such moles placed into the UK political structure by the shady organization. It's a great conspiracy theory, but, evident or not, is it in fact the final truth? Our narrator discovers that, no, it isn't . . .

      Gotta confess I found the conspiracy theory pretty convincing.

      This is a spiffy book at every level: it functions well as a page-turning thriller, you bet; and it's a wonderfully biting, often laugh-out-loud funny piece of social/political satire.
    • 4/5
      The Ghost Writer by Robert Harris was a a very entertaining story. Although it received only moderate reviews, I was drawn in by the descriptive language of the author and by the high quality of the actor that read the book. I felt as if I knew the frustrations, challenges and sorrows of the ghost came through in the story. It is true that the people in out lives who are quietly behind the scenes supporting and working toward others success do not get the recognition or acknowledgement they deserve, and never is it more true than in ghost writing. I enjoyed this b0ok and recommend it for others who love the descriptive nature of pictures painted with words, especially is a mysterious political setting. I give it a rating of 4.
    • 4/5
      Much better than the turgid film version
    • 4/5
      The Ghost is a fast paced political thriller by Robert Harris. The title refers to the ghost writer, who is hired to help Adam Lang, the ex-Prime Minister of England, pen his memoir. The first ghost writer fell off the ferry into Nantucket Sound, and his body washed up onto shore; so he needed to be replaced. Suspicion is warranted against multiple characters, as the ghost tries to find out who is subject really. The ex-Prime Minister seems unabashedly to be based on Tony Blair, including his toadying up to America during the Iraq invasion.

      There are plot revelations right up to the final pages. I picked up this book for a quick read, and with an interest in seeing the recent film adaptation. To me, The Ghost is a step above the usual thriller fare, and I look forward to reading more of Robert Harris.
    • 2/5
      This aptly titled tells the tale of a professional ghostwriter who is asked to complete the memoir of a fictional British Prime Minister, Adam Lang (having an uncanny resemblance to Tony Blair). The project was begun by a former aide of Lang's who apparently committed suicide and there is now a rush to get the book finished. After agreeing to take the job our un-named narrator heads to Martha's Vineyard in the US where Lang and his wife are staying but before he can get much work done Lang, increasingly unpopular at home, is accused by one of his former Ministers of a heinous act committed during the 'war on terror' and the UN's International Criminal Court looks set to charge him with war crimes. When the ghostwriter learns some of the secrets that his predecessor had uncovered his own life comes under threat.

      Unfortunately this is a book with a premise that's far more intriguing in the imagination than in execution. Harris' historical thrillers are packed with atmosphere, interesting characters and genuine thrills but here not much is left after you spend some time trying to work out which characteristics of his former friends the Blairs he has incorporated into the 'fictional' couple and which he's made up (and really there's a limit to how interesting that activity is).

      I suspect this is not what the author intended but I found the parts of the story that dealt with the craft of ghostwriting and the behind the scenes insights into big publishing far more interesting than the central plot concerning the Langs, their secrets and their acceptance (or otherwise) of their loss of power and influence. That part was plain dull. If you've ever had a big argument with a good friend and dashed off a long, rant-y email or letter immediately after the argument you'll have some idea what this story is like. It's full of that spiteful venom we humans tend to spew out when we're hurt and it would have benefited from sitting in a drawer for a few years and being dusted off again when the worst of Harris' hurt had faded. Perhaps then he would have been able to weave a few genuine thrills into a story that in its current form is just a long diatribe about how wrong it was for the UK to follow the US into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and what a bastard he thinks Blair was for being at the front of the charge. Whether I agree with Harris or not on this point is irrelevant, this is supposed to be a work of fiction not an op-ed piece for a major newspaper. As a work of fiction it is poorly constructed, lacks suspense, has a highly unbelievable (not to mention cringe-inducing) sex scene and an ending that made me giggle (at it, not with it).

      Within the book the un-named ghostwriter shares a theory about how all good books are different but all bad books are the same: they don't pass what he calls 'the seaplane test' which is named after a book in which someone landed their seaplane on the Thames as a means of getting to work at which point nothing else in the book rang true. I'm not sure if it's ironic or just sad that this book itself fails to pass its own test for ringing true. It's page-turning enough and there's a nice undercurrent of humour but there's just not enough substance to the characterisations and set pieces to be genuinely engaging.
    • 3/5
      Well constructed thriller, will appeal to those who don't like Tony Blair and can see him in the former PM who gets his comeupance - the similarities are a bit too obvious!
    • 3/5
      A well-paced mystery/thriller written in a clear and direct, if perhaps too prosaic, style. Our protagonist is a ghost writer, hired to complete an "autobiography" of a recent British PM who is (honest, cross your heart) NOT Tony Blair. The previous ghost died in mysterious circumstances, and Not-Tony-Bliar is possibly about to be arrested and tried for war crimes in the Hague. Political machinations, the CIA, the Iraq war, torture flights, and a (too predictable?) twist in the tail. I enjoyed it, but not as much as Harris' ancient Roman novels.
    • 3/5
      Much better than the movie. Pretty good mystery novel about political intrugue, murder and the like.
    • 5/5
      I found this an excellent, topical read. The build up of tension was impeccably paced and, just when you think you've got to the bottom of it, the twist in the tail gets you. (Well he caught me out, at least.) For me, it had something in it of The Day of the Jackal, which is no small praise. One should also factor in the descriptive writing which is first class, so to my mind, one of Harris' best
    • 3/5
      Harris got hold of a staggeringly brilliant idea when he sat down to write this one, but sadly he fails to deliver it. Could have been a truly great, worthy, timely, compelling literary book; ends up as a plonky thriller. It's not that bad, but it could have been great.
    • 5/5
      Really enjoyed reading this book - excellent plot, quick paced, well written.