publishing industry magazines all awarded Ghost Flames “starred” reviews. Kirkus Reviews called it “a masterly new history. … The accretion of astounding detail makes for a vivid, multilayered look at a deeply complicated war in which few emerged as heroic. A top-notch addition to the literature on the Korean War." Publishers Weekly wrote, "Hanley paints an extraordinary portrait of the war's complexity and devastation. This is an essential account of America's ‘forgotten war’." In Library Journal, reviewer Michael Rodriguez described it as “an extraordinary kaleidoscope of human experiences in a catastrophic forgotten war." In The New York Times, reviewer Gordon G. Chang wrote, “In unforgettable fashion, Hanley, a Pulitzer Prize winner, tells the story of the Korean War, one of the most savage conflicts in history, through eyewitness accounts of 20 people, most of them victims.” The Wall Street Journal’s Arthur Herman found Ghost Flames to be a “harrowing account, in all its vivid detail” and “compelling reading” that “delves into the darker recesses of this conflict.” But he criticized what he contended was an effort to draw “moral equivalence” between the two sides, claiming instead that North Korea bore responsibility for all the estimated 3 million deaths for having started the war. The online Lifestyle Asia called Ghost Flames "a piece of historical non-fiction like no other. ... each story is a harrowing point of view on the realities of war." Reviewing the book in the journal Asian Perspective, international affairs expert Walter C. Clemens Jr. praised Hanley as “an experienced war reporter and a sensitive human being, but also a careful scholar,” and asked, “Is there another history book that describes any war from so many angles, so many sides – and does so this gracefully?” Publication The rights to Ghost Flames were sold to Clive Priddle at PublicAffairs in July 2018 by Peter Bernstein and Amy Bernstein at Bernstein Literary Agency. An original spring 2020 publication date was postponed to August 2020 because of the global coronavirus crisis. References External links Publisher's Ghost Flames web page. Excerpts from Ghost Flames at The Wilson Quarterly. "Charles Hanley on Korean War 70th Anniversary", American History TV, C-SPAN, June 21, 2020. 2020 non-fiction books Korean War books PublicAffairs books