Whereas The Shadow of the Wind was a slow starter, its prequel El Juego del Angel ( The Angel’s Game, 2008), set in the 20s, had an initial print run in Spanish of one million copies and had a rock-star launch in front of 150 journalists in Barcelona’s grand opera house, the Liceu. The weather reflects the novel’s gothic gloom: Barcelona becomes an unreal city of “ashen skies”, drizzle and fog swirling through chilly streets. Daniel’s destiny is set: he will search for the author of the book he selects, the elusive Julián Carax. There the books lie unloved in dust until someone comes to choose one.
The opening grips the reader by the arm (or throat): the 10-year-old Daniel, anguished because he can no longer remember the face of his dead mother, is taken by his father, a bookseller, to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a secret labyrinth in Barcelona’s Gothic quarter.
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