Robert Harris - 'The Ghost'

Philippe Sands is back in front of the US Senate Hearing on Guantanamo today, after his last testimony there was interrupted. His weekend appearance at the Ways with Words festival returned to me last night as I stayed up late to finish Robert Harris's The Ghost.
Jon Snow, Sands's interviewer, felt no political leader would be brought to account for actions deemed to be war crimes. Sands felt differently, that a new administration in the US will bring a flow of information to light and that prominent arrests could happen through 2012 to 2015.
Robert Harris ups the stakes by having an ex-prime minister hounded by the International Criminal Court it what is recognizably now, his figures clearly modelled on Tony and Cherie Blair. It's a very bright, cutting and imaginative take. Behind it all is a cunning analysis of Blair's positioning Britain as an American client state. I'd like to give more away ... but it really is fun to discover the twists and the characters of this book through to its last page.