BookBrowse Reviews The Ghost: A dark, tortured man with haunting secrets in his past – secrets with the power to alter world politics. Secrets with the power to kill

The reader is drawn in from the very first sentence: "The moment I heard how McAra died, I should have walked away." It's a good predictor of the rest of the book, which is to say that it's entertaining and well written. Yet for a much-hyped thriller, some of the thrill is missing.

The story, set in the modern age of terrorism, is slow-paced, yet learning along with the narrator piques our interest, and Harris's simple yet engaging prose marked with occasional wry humor keeps things moving along. Still, it's not until the final third of the book that the pace really picks up. There are only a couple of major plot twists, and they're almost predictable for those of us who are paying close attention.

We join the narrator...