|  Major Motoko Kusanagi is an elite officer in the Section 9 security force : a  cybernetic agent so heavily modified that little more than her Ghost remains. Along with  fellow cyborg Bateau and the mostly human Togusa, Kusanagi is set on the trail of a computer-criminal known as the Puppet Master, a data thief skilled enough to hack into the very minds of his victims. His human marionettes live out  existences that are nothing more than computer-generated fantasy, unwittingly committing their master's crimes while the Ghost-hacker hides in the darkness.  But as Kusanagi digs deeper into the walls of secrecy surronding the case,  it appears that the Puppet Master has a special interest in her alone. And when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shadowy Section 6, enter the scene, Kusanagi  becomes tangled in a web of plot and counterplot, and realizes that the true identity  of her invisible assailant lies at the center of a vast and lethal political conspiracy...  |