The Ghost / The Ghost Writer

Robert Harris, who wrote Fatherland and Enigma, both serviceable novels, has also given us The Ghost (2010), about a ghostwriter helping a former British Prime Minister with his memoirs. Any similarities between Tony Blair and the PM in this book, who was too firmly in bed with the Americans over the Iraq debacle, signed off on the torture and rendition of British citizens, got tossed out of office on his ear after Britain got pissed off over being sold a bill of goods in the "war on terror", and who has spent his year since retiring amassing a great personal fortune, are completely coincidental.  Our unnamed point of view character is the replacement ghost writer for a former British prime minister's memoirs. His predecessor, who had started the project, has died under mysterious circumstances, and the writer struggles to solve the mystery and turn in a serviceable manuscript. Things go pear-shaped for the writer when he actually figures out the mystery. 

    Roman Polanski's movie, confusingly titled The Ghost Writer, and then renamed The Ghost on re-issue, is a very good version of the book, preserving the story's backbone in a compelling way, with Ewan McGregor as the writer, Pierce Brosnan as the PM, and