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Ghost Country
From the bestselling author of The Psalm Killer and The Butchers of Berlin
'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David Peace
A breath-taking contemporary thriller for readers of Robert Harris, John le Carré and Martin Cruz Smith
When a government minister is shot there are many suspects but few leads. Days before the attempted assassination, Charlotte Waites, a Home Office analyst, dismissed a crucial intel flag and now has to account for her actions. Dragged into a web of intrigue that will draw in everybody from the prime minister to her ailing father, she must try to get the bottom of the mystery while confronting dark secrets from her family's past.
Complex, gripping and deftly-handled, Ghost Country is work of staggering imagination that, from Northern Ireland to Covid, looks at the complexities of Britain's recent history and distils them into an unforgettable literary thriller.
'One of Britain's most visionary writers' David Peace
A breath-taking contemporary thriller for readers of Robert Harris, John le Carré and Martin Cruz Smith
When a government minister is shot there are many suspects but few leads. Days before the attempted assassination, Charlotte Waites, a Home Office analyst, dismissed a crucial intel flag and now has to account for her actions. Dragged into a web of intrigue that will draw in everybody from the prime minister to her ailing father, she must try to get the bottom of the mystery while confronting dark secrets from her family's past.
Complex, gripping and deftly-handled, Ghost Country is work of staggering imagination that, from Northern Ireland to Covid, looks at the complexities of Britain's recent history and distils them into an unforgettable literary thriller.
- GenresEspionage
349 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2022
3 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 11, 2025
For some unintentional reason, I have been finding myself reading quite a lot of murder mystery stories recently. These have ranged from the comic end of the spectrum (Sarah Caudwell) to the decidedly noir end (Mick Herron). Wherever on this spectrum books lie, they are outside my usual reading. Broadly speaking, I have found these all entertaining enough, none of them being a trial to read, but few of them being striking.
Christ Petit’s Ghost Country was recommended to me by a good friend and is firmly at the très noir end of the genre. Having finished it, I would say I found it interesting enough for me to happily continue reading it daily, but without any features that would place it as a more distinguished example.
The idea behind the story, that governments and spy agencies operate outside the sort of moral parameters that we poor individual souls regard as fundamental, is certainly worthy of being the central theme and, in being set in Ireland, it is a theme which is plausibly present. This presents a number of issues which engage with the reader’s ethical framework. This makes for good reading. The central involvement of national leaders in nefarious activities adds further spice to it.
Further to this, the major characters, especially Charlotte, but perhaps also Parker, Cross, Roberts, Moffat and Hopkins, are convincingly portrayed and, while they do not necessarily grow during the story, the reader’s understanding of them is never complete, and does grow.
Those are substantial qualities and make the book thoroughly worthy. By and large, they are about the only qualities I can identify, though.
Frankly, the narrative writing style is wall-to-wall rough and spare and the characters speak roughly and sparely. Descendants of Dashiell Hammett. That all fits consistently enough, but no-one would read the book in order to glory in its writing style. I enjoyed Cross’s mother’s observation: ‘He always was a romantic boy,’ she said. ‘A bit half-baked.’ ‘That nonsense about confession; in my book you never discuss anything with a priest apart from the local tombola.’ But that was about the only humour in the whole work. Unless you count “Outside, the dreariest possible afternoon was no advertisement for life” as humour. Of a dark variety.
The plot was well constructed with lots of obligatory false turns and unexpected surprises sustaining interest. My one complaint would be that the final exposition was really too long. Occupying over ten percent of the book to provide all the explanations and tie up loose ends was excessive and slowed down what had been a fairly fast-moving pace.
Christ Petit’s Ghost Country was recommended to me by a good friend and is firmly at the très noir end of the genre. Having finished it, I would say I found it interesting enough for me to happily continue reading it daily, but without any features that would place it as a more distinguished example.
The idea behind the story, that governments and spy agencies operate outside the sort of moral parameters that we poor individual souls regard as fundamental, is certainly worthy of being the central theme and, in being set in Ireland, it is a theme which is plausibly present. This presents a number of issues which engage with the reader’s ethical framework. This makes for good reading. The central involvement of national leaders in nefarious activities adds further spice to it.
Further to this, the major characters, especially Charlotte, but perhaps also Parker, Cross, Roberts, Moffat and Hopkins, are convincingly portrayed and, while they do not necessarily grow during the story, the reader’s understanding of them is never complete, and does grow.
Those are substantial qualities and make the book thoroughly worthy. By and large, they are about the only qualities I can identify, though.
Frankly, the narrative writing style is wall-to-wall rough and spare and the characters speak roughly and sparely. Descendants of Dashiell Hammett. That all fits consistently enough, but no-one would read the book in order to glory in its writing style. I enjoyed Cross’s mother’s observation: ‘He always was a romantic boy,’ she said. ‘A bit half-baked.’ ‘That nonsense about confession; in my book you never discuss anything with a priest apart from the local tombola.’ But that was about the only humour in the whole work. Unless you count “Outside, the dreariest possible afternoon was no advertisement for life” as humour. Of a dark variety.
The plot was well constructed with lots of obligatory false turns and unexpected surprises sustaining interest. My one complaint would be that the final exposition was really too long. Occupying over ten percent of the book to provide all the explanations and tie up loose ends was excessive and slowed down what had been a fairly fast-moving pace.
August 18, 2025
A complex political thriller based on the premise of Britain considering the idea of a United Ireland. A complex undercurrent leading to who the guilty party is in an assassination of a Cabinet Minister. While enjoyable, I did find it difficult to follow some of the links between the characters. Many books don’t require you to think too much, this isn’t one of them but has a depth that keeps the reader thinking throughout.
January 20, 2024
A well written espionage novel, with foundations in the 'troubles´in Northern Ireland in the 1970's.various real events add credibility.The female protagonist is nicely created with her naivety and her family past, along with her helper, blighted physically with a virulent skin condition , he is proficient hacker, which was plausible.As were the pseudo villain Cross with his PTSD and trauma.
I thoroughly enjoyed this thought provoking and well written novel.
I thoroughly enjoyed this thought provoking and well written novel.
May 24, 2025
I didn't enjoy this and found it a struggle. The plot was too overwrought and implausible, it had to be explained in pages of exposition at the end. The characters were mostly just a jumble of names with little meaning attached to them - a mishmash of generic shadowy, unreliable, unscrupulous government/ military intelligence types with opaque agendas - and there was a lack of atmosphere or colour or nuance - everything was just bleak, depressing and dull. The writing lacked flair or imagination and was stylistically confusing: I often found myself having to read sentences three or four times to try and figure out what it meant:
“Charlotte looked at Hopkins and Roberts and decided that Hopkins probably thought that Parker and Moffat knew that Hopkins was lying to Roberts but that Roberts believed Hopkins was working for Lafferty and O’Grady.”*
Apart from that it was OK.
*Not an actual quote from the book
“Charlotte looked at Hopkins and Roberts and decided that Hopkins probably thought that Parker and Moffat knew that Hopkins was lying to Roberts but that Roberts believed Hopkins was working for Lafferty and O’Grady.”*
Apart from that it was OK.
*Not an actual quote from the book
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews