The other protagonists are a North Korean communist party functionary; a mother of two in Seoul; Major General Yu Song-chol, the North Korean army operations chief; Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway, the U.S. army’s operations chief; a North Korean Naval Academy cadet; a black American infantryman; a Maryknoll nun; a northern medical student; a U.S. 1st Cavalry Division soldier; a Korean journalist in Seoul; a British communist journalist; a Seoul high school student; a high school student from Kochang, South Korea; a female Seoul university student; a Chinese interpreter at the truce talks; a U.S. Marine officer; a U.S. 7th Infantry Division soldier; overall Chinese commander General Peng Teh-huai; and a Chinese army medic.

These individuals observe or participate in the war’s major events: the U.S.-South Korean retreat into the defensive Pusan Perimeter; the Inchon Landing; the breakout from the perimeter; the U.S.-South Korean drive deep into North Korea; the intervention of the Chinese army on North Korea’s side; the seesawing battles over the peninsula’s midsection; the trench warfare of 1951–1953; the truce talks; the signing of an armistice on July 27, 1953.

… The accretion of astounding detail makes for a vivid, multilayered look at a deeply complicated war in which few emerged as heroic.

"[2] In Library Journal, reviewer Michael Rodriguez described it as “an extraordinary kaleidoscope of human experiences in a catastrophic forgotten war.

"[3] 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.”[4] 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.