The Ghost

"This is great fun, a ripping yarn, lovely suspense, great story, but still touching on some pretty serious, pretty contemporary issues: notably what happens to a government when the values that we’ve been talking about begin to evaporate, in particular in the context of that great euphemism, the War on Terrror, which I think was all about euphemisms. Perhaps the euphemism to end all euphemisms was ‘extraordinary rendition’, which means kidnap and torture in freedom’s name, it seems, and that and its consequences are dealt with in the book, which obviously doesn’t end happily for the fictional prime minister in it. It’s hard not to make that assumption. This is a book about what happens when the rules of the game no longer apply, and it’s about picking up the pieces and dealing with the consequences of that and trying to understand how people can be mesmerised and drunk on their own confidence. But, most of all, it’s a lovely classic thriller. I think it’s a nice conceit that you’ve got this protagonist, the Prime Minister’s ghostwriter, who has just drifted into this and is fairly morally neutral about everything; it’s a nice way to bring the reader in, and then he obviously discovers various things. The book might perhaps remind us of some of the things that have happened in our name during this misguided, misnamed, misjudged War on Terror, which will rob us of our values. Because we’re supposed to feel that we’re in a permanent state of war, so the rules of the game no longer apply. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I’m always incredibly admiring of people who can convey the sort of things that I would want to convey, although I don’t have those talents – whether it’s J K Rowling or Robert Harris or even Harper Lee. It’s the power of fiction – that ability to move people with suspense, character, emotion."