In The Ghost the unnamed narrator takes on -- for very good money -- the commission to 'ghost-write' the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang -- a PM whose term in office, actions, and family situation all bear a striking resemblance to those of Tony Blair.

The narrator is a professional ghostwriter, so it's not that extraordinary that he's called in for the job, but the circumstances are unusual. The man who originally had the gig, Michael McAra, died on the job, and the publishers, who apparently shelled out $10,000,000 for the book, are desperate to get a finished book out as soon as possible. In fact, they want the manuscript delivered in a month.

There's a lot of money in it for him, and it wouldn't be bad for his career either, so the ghostwriter takes the job. The fact that he's assaulted on the way home from the publisher as soon as they offer him the job, and that the manuscript he's carrying -- one handed to him at the publishers by Lang's American attorney, a book by another of his clients which he says he wants the ghost's opinion about -- is the only thing stolen should maybe make him suspicious but, well, it doesn't .....

Lang is holed up in America, on Martha's Vineyard, at some rich man's estate. His wife is there too, Ruth (and you can almost feel Harris again and again resisting the urge to have the former PM call her ma chérie at some point ...), along with an assistant, Amelia Bly, and a large security detail, etc. etc. It's winter and desolate out there -- everything comfortably ominous, with every conceivable tension (not forgetting the sexual) in the air.

There's also a lot of secrecy. McAra had already written up a great deal, and the ghostwriter plans to base his version on that, but he's not allowed to remove the book from the premises (something he (unwisely) tests using modern technology). And then there are the circumstances of McAra's death, which don't seem entirely straightforward (and will seem less and less so).

Harris has some fun in describing the ghostwriting life, the publishing industry, and the narrator's approach to celebrity books -- it's no Cooking with Fernet Branca, but it's not that far removed either. The narrator's little speech about how to turn this particular memoir into one that actually sells seems, like much in the novel, a bit simplistic (if not downright a reductio ad absurdum), but at least Harris generally gets to his points very quickly -- and hence keeps things moving. And sometimes the succinctness works -- barely more need be said about Tony Blair Adam Lang than how the narrator sums him up right at the beginning; "He wasn't a politician; he was a craze."

They've barely started working on the memoir when things go from bad to catastrophically worse: the former British Foreign Secretary has given documents to the International Criminal Court in the Hague and they're set to investigate Tony Blair Adam Lang on charges that he illegally handed over terror-suspects to be tortured by the CIA. The publishers see a fantastic opportunity here: now they want the book in two weeks time, and for the focus to be these allegations and Lang's side of the story.

Things get pretty frantic, especially after it finally gets through the ghostwriter's thick head that McAra's death was unlikely to have been accidental. In an admittedly creative (if also slightly tiresomely-stretched out) use of modern technology Harris lets his ghost follow McAra's trail, leading him to a mysterious man from Blair's Lang's past -- and into a whole lot of danger.

Some of the all-knowing spy-details seem a bit too good to be true -- they always seem to know pretty darn fast exactly where he is -- but the overall feel of the ghost being in way over his head is reasonably well done. There are also staggered steps of resolution to the story, with Harris taking the easy way out with several of them (Blair Lang, and then the ghostwriter), but the explanation behind it all, the story that they were trying to cover up (and which McAra had come upon) is a pretty clever twist.

The Ghost is pretty light as a Blair-character portrait, and a bit stronger as an indictment of the Blair years, in particular the PM's lap-dog relationship with the George jr. Bush administration. As the former Foreign Secretary challenges the ghost:

"Come on," he said. "It's not a trick question. Just name me one thing he did that Washington wouldn't have approved of.

" I have friends in Washington who just can't believe the way that Lang ran British foreign policy. I mean, they were embarrassed by how much support he gave and how little he got in return.

And Harris does offer a somewhat satisfying explanation what's behind that.

The Ghost is a decent thriller: very fast-paced, with some good ideas and twists to it, and very topical. It does also feel like something of a rush-job, much of it simplified, occasionally downright silly. Still, as a quick airplane read it's perfectly adequate.