Robert Harris is no stranger to turning the high-concept thriller to literary ends. The Ghost, his previous novel, featured a cipher for Tony Blair, chewing over his time in office with a biographer who soon finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy well out of his control. Politically astute and controversial, it was also a captivating yarn of intrigue and violently defended secrets, later adapted for the screen by Harris and Roman Polanski. You could imagine Blair himself reading it on holiday.
