Ghost writer

An unnamed British ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) is recruited to complete the memoirs of former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). His predecessor on the project and Lang's long-term aide, Mike McAra, died in an apparent accident. The writer travels to the fictional Massachusetts village of Old Haven on Martha's Vineyard, where Lang is staying with his wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), and a staff of servants and security personnel. The writer is checked into a small hotel. Lang's personal assistant (and mistress), Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall), forbids him to take McAra's manuscript outside, emphasizing that it is a security risk.

Shortly after the writer's arrival, Lang is accused by former Foreign Secretary Richard Rycart (Robert Pugh) of authorising the illegal seizure of suspected terrorists and handing them over for torture by the CIA, a possible war crime. Lang faces prosecution by theInternational Criminal Court unless he stays in the U.S. or any other country that does not recognise the court's jurisdiction. As reporters and protesters swarm the island, the writer is moved into McAra's old room at Lang's house, where personal belongings have not been cleared out yet. Lang then travels to Washington, D.C.. While clearing the room, the writer finds an envelope containing clues that suggest McAra may have stumbled upon a dark secret. Among the material is a handwritten phone number.

During a bicycle ride around the island, the writer encounters an old man (Eli Wallach) who tells him that the current couldn't have taken McAra's body from the ferry where he disappeared to the beach where it was discovered. He also reveals that a neighbour saw flashlights on the beach the night the body was discovered, but later fell off a ladder and went into a coma. The writer is later intercepted by Ruth and her security guard, who take him back to the estate. There, Ruth admits that Lang has never been very political, and until recently had always taken her advice. When the writer tells her the old man's story, she suddenly rushes out into the rainy night to "clear her head." Upon returning, she confides in the writer that Lang and McAra had argued the night before he died. She and the writer end up sleeping together.

The next morning, the writer decides he is getting too intimate with his subject and moves back to the hotel. After finding some photos of Lang's college days, driving McAra's car, he follows pre-programmed directions on the vehicle's sat-nav that lead him to Belmont, at the estate of Professor Paul Emmett (Tom Wilkinson). Emmett denies anything more than a cursory acquaintance with Lang, despite the writer showing him two photographs of the two of them, as well as another one on the wall of his study. When the writer tells Emmett that the directions to Emmett's house were programmed on McAra's sat-nav the night he died and that his predecessor visited him, Emmett denies any knowledge and becomes evasive. The writer leaves Emmett's estate, and he is followed by a car, but manages to elude it. The writer boards the ferry, but when he sees the car that had followed him drive aboard, with two men looking for him, he flees the boat at the last moment and checks into a small motel by the ferry dock.

Not knowing whom to turn to, the writer dials the handwritten phone number, only to discover it belongs to Rycart, who inquires about his whereabouts and indicates he'll pick him up. While waiting for Rycart, the writer does a Google search on Emmett and finds that, in addition to being a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor, he is linked with a military contractor through his think tank. He also finds leads that connect Emmett to the CIA as far back as the 1970s, when the agency recruited academics for the creation of propaganda material to be used abroad. When Rycart arrives, he tells the writer that McAra supplied him with documents linking Lang to torture flights. He also reveals that McAra had found something new before he died, confiding to Rycart that in case anything happened, the clues would be in the "beginning" of the book. The men cannot, however, find anything in the manuscript's early pages. The writer then reveals all of the information he found about Emmett, theorizing that he recruited Lang, to which Rycart agrees, saying that, for all his tenure as Prime Minister, all of Lang's decisions were aimed at helping the U.S. When the writer is summoned to accompany Lang on the return flight, he confronts Lang and accuses him of being a CIA agent recruited by Emmett and tells him that McAra was outing him out with Rycart. Lang derides his suggestions.

Upon alighting the aircraft, Lang is assassinated by a British anti-war protestor, who is in turn shot by Lang's bodyguards. The writer is questioned by U.S. authorities as a prime witness, and his passport withheld, though later recovered by his publicist. Despite Lang's death, the writer is asked to complete the book for posthumous publication, as in light of the recent events, it will be a best-seller. During the book's launch party in London, Amelia unwittingly tells the writer that the Americans tightened access to the book, as the "beginnings" contained evidence that threatened national security. She also tells him that Emmett was Ruth's tutor when she was aFulbright scholar in Harvard. The writer realises that the clues were hidden in the original manuscript at the beginning of each chapter, and discovers the message, "Lang's wife Ruth was recruited as a CIA agent by Professor Paul Emmett of Harvard University." Ruth shaped Lang's every political decision to benefit the United States, under direction from the CIA.

The writer passes a note to Ruth telling of his discovery. She unfolds the note, and is devastated. When she sees the writer raising a glass, she is kept from following him by Emmett and other assistants. As the writer leaves the party he attempts to take a taxi, without success, and as he crosses the street off-camera, a car accelerates in his direction, and sound effects and flying papers indicate that he has been hit.