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Harlot's Ghost (1991), a fictional, 1300-page chronicle of the CIA by Norman Mailer, is considered by the author to be one of his best novels. The characters are a mixture of real people and fictional figures; the logic of this mix is explained in Mailer's postscript to the novel.

Atmospheric and troubling, Harlot's Ghost exemplifies Mailer's skills as both a novelist and a chronicler. Although it should not be read as a factual account of the CIA's activities, it evokes the mood and methods of this organisation and the men who created it.

At first it appears to be the autobiography of Harry Hubbard, which is made up of anecdotes of his adventures in the CIA. The very beginning of the book starts with Harry being told by a friend that his mentor Hugh Montague, a.k.a Harlot, has either been assassinated or committed suicide on his boat. He then is told by his wife, Kitteredge, that she has been unfaithful and is in love with another man. Morally wounded, he goes to Russia, where he stays in the Metropol, his "home away from home." It is there that he rereads the dense manuscript of his life at the CIA, the working title is "The Game". At that point, the book really begins. We go through his life, including his relationship with his father and with his lover, Kitteredge, and all the other people with whom he worked. The book appears to be many things: a thriller, a character study, a treatise...even a romance.

The book ends in 1963 with the words "To be continued," a pledge the author has yet to fulfill.

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