Beverly A

I was stunned to see this book's rating. It is one of the best books I have read in months. The writing is deceptively simple and deft....similar to Graham Greene's style.

The "Ghost" is an English ghostwriter of "has-been" celebrity biographies. He takes on (for a very generous sum) this hurried assignment of an unfinished book about a recently retired English Prime Minister, a character closely modeled on Tony Blair. The rewrite and completion is difficult with elements of urgency, mystery and, possibly, danger, for the writer.

The characters of the "ghost", the P.M. his wife and his assistant are adroitly exposed. We are quickly gifted with an insider's glimpse of what would have been, should have been and could have been, actually never was. The outsiders' "truth" was merely clever "spin".

The dreary, wintry, Chappaquidick itself lends a mood of isolation and nothing-as-it-seems disquiet.

For me, the ending was shocking, but had certainly been foreshadowed. I have touted this book to all my friends and cannot understand why it isn't on bestseller lists.

Trevor's main characters experience profound perceptions of self and situations that bring resolution/acceptance, slowly, ruefully. There is poetry in Trevor's prose -- graceful words and poignant, telling phrases.

From "The Children": "Connie and her father, while slowly coming to terms with the loss they had suffered, shared the awareness of a ghost that fleetingly demanded no more than to be remembered. Life continuing could not fold away what had happened but it offered something, blurring the drama of death's immediacy."

Serious readers are often avid people - watchers, curious about fears, desires, triumphs, loves, cruelties, betrayals: the human condition revealed. This isn't a book to be rushed through, but it is remarkable. I highly recommend it.