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Rating: 
Summary: Un-intelligence - all the pieces but no picture
Review: Charles Whiting's book, Ghost Front: The Ardennes Before the Battle of the Bulge" is an interesting, if brief, examination of the Allied failure to see the German Ardennes offensive of 1944 coming before it happened. Other reviews have stated that Whiting provides no real insight as to why this happened, and in the end analysis there is some truth in that - many of the facts surrounding this huge intelligence faux pas remain obscured and possibly lost forever to time. However, in contrast to some other reviews I found Whiting's explanations of the events quite compelling and enlightening. Granted no single fault was found with Allied intelligence to place blame on, but that was why the Bulge occurred - no single event, but rather a series of events lead up to the Ardennes offensive and the German surprise. Whiting in my opinion does a decent job introducing many of the significant intelligence characters of the period, both Allied and Nazi. I found the stories of the German counter-intelligence ploys most interesting and enlightening, as these are sides of the story not often told. While there is certainly enough new material here to keep one interested I tend to agree with previous reviews that Whiting's style is a bit difficult at first, but I got used to it. I read the book over a three-day period (mainly while traveling for a business trip) and can say that in the end I really enjoyed the book. Yet, it's shortness (~160 pages) made it not quite worth full market price when all the criticisms discussed above are taken into account. I would however not dissuade readers from taking a look at other works by Whiting.
Rating: 
Summary: From www.wargamer.com
Review: I hear www.wargamer.com will soon have a full review of this title. They also have many other reviews, previews and analysis articles of military history.Ghost Front is a fascinating, if somewhat esoteric, view of the events that led up to the Battle of the Bulge. The intelligence failure of the Allies, or more precise, the pure blindness they suffered from, caused tens of thousands of needless casualties on both sides of the line. Charles Whiting does a good job of portraying information that is not easily found in other sources, but his grammatical style has errors and doesn't flow very well in places, making reading this book less enjoyable than it should be.
Rating: 
Summary: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...
Review: I looked forward to reading this book, after all, I love WWII history. Unfortunately, the more I read Whiting, the more I believe that instead of 200+ books (see inside jacket cover), he should have written five.
First, the good. He describes a set of operations before the Battle of the Bulge - not popularly known and this is good that he handles the subject. Praise for the intent. In addition, the book deals with some little-known details, including "Operation Heinrich" managed by Giskes.
Now, the bad. The reason why I hesitate to call the author a historian is because he is, above all, inaccurate. Specifics (just examples, they abound all over the book): 1) on page 22, a Belgian castle is referred to as "Chateau du Boise St. Jean"[sic!]. Then on page 23 it is "Chateau de Bois St. Jean". Finally, on page 27 it becomes "Chateau du Bois St. Jean"... So, either consistency, or knowing French would help.
2) Caption of first picture after page 115 (hardcover): " ... SS Commander 'Sepp', Dietrich, founder of the Liebstandarte" ... come on, Mr. Whiting, you should know it is "Leibstandarte" - you wrote a highly re-hashed book about "Jochen" Peiper, in the title of that book you at least correctly referred to it as "Leibstandarte"... Again, either consistency or knowing German might help.
Finally, the ugly. This goes on and on... One of these examples could be an editorial error, but the author does not seem to care, or know. Others wrote about his quite unfounded anti-American and anti-Eisenhower bias, so I say no more about that... To balance it, I guess, there is quite a bit of anti-German bias as well (now the Brits, they are fine...).
I wish there were less re-hash, more accuracy ... or just fewer books and better quality...
Rating:
Summary: From www.wargamer.com
Review: I thought I would get an explanation of why the Allied air forces could not discern the buildup in the Ardennes. But Whiting does not offer an explanation. Instead he focuses on the mismash of intelligence failures. But, you don't get to know any of the characters very well. Plus, from a writing perspective, Whiting has to many long, disconnected subclauses that are difficult to comprehend. Finally, he repeats himself often. Don't pay full price for this book. It is not essential to your WWII collection!
Rating:
Summary: Underwhelming
Review: I thought I would get an explanation of why the Allied air forces could not discern the buildup in the Ardennes. But Whiting does not offer an explanation. Instead he focuses on the mismash of intelligence failures. But, you don't get to know any of the characters very well. Plus, from a writing perspective, Whiting has to many long, disconnected subclauses that are difficult to comprehend. Finally, he repeats himself often. Don't pay full price for this book. It is not essential to your WWII collection!
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