New York Times Bestseller
"Packed with suspense. . . a gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller." — Washington Book Review
The internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author returns to the magnificent universe he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel's Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven in this riveting series finale—a heart-pounding thriller and nail-biting work of suspense which introduces a sexy, seductive new heroine whose investigation shines a light on the dark history of Franco's Spain.
In this unforgettable final volume of Ruiz Zafón's cycle of novels set in the universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, beautiful and enigmatic Alicia Gris, with the help of the Sempere family, uncovers one of the most shocking conspiracies in all Spanish history.
Nine-year-old Alicia lost her parents during the Spanish Civil War when the Nacionales (the fascists) savagely bombed Barcelona in 1938. Twenty years later, she still carries the emotional and physical scars of that violent and terrifying time. Weary of her work as an investigator for Spain's secret police in Madrid, a job she has held for more than a decade, the twenty-nine-year old plans to move on. At the insistence of her boss, Leandro Montalvo, she remains to solve one last case: the mysterious disappearance of Spain's Minister of Culture, Mauricio Valls.
With her partner, the intimidating policeman Juan Manuel Vargas, Alicia discovers a possible clue—a rare book by the author Victor Mataix hidden in Valls' office in his Madrid mansion. Valls was the director of the notorious Montjuic Prison in Barcelona during World War II where several writers were imprisoned, including David Martín and Victor Mataix. Traveling to Barcelona on the trail of these writers, Alicia and Vargas meet with several booksellers, including Juan Sempere, who knew her parents.
As Alicia and Vargas come closer to finding Valls, they uncover a tangled web of kidnappings and murders tied to the Franco regime, whose corruption is more widespread and horrifying than anyone imagined. Alicia's courageous and uncompromising search for the truth puts her life in peril. Only with the help of a circle of devoted friends will she emerge from the dark labyrinths of Barcelona and its history into the light of the future.
In this haunting novel, Carlos Ruiz Zafón proves yet again that he is a masterful storyteller and pays homage to the world of books, to his ingenious creation of the Cemetery of Forgotten, and to that magical bridge between literature and our lives.
New York Times Bestseller
"Packed with suspense. . . a gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller." — Washington Book Review
The internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author returns to the magnificent universe he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel's Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven in this riveting series finale—a heart-pounding thriller and nail-biting work of suspense which introduces a sexy, seductive new heroine whose investigation shines a light on the dark history of Franco's Spain.
In this unforgettable final volume of Ruiz Zafón's cycle of novels set in the universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, beautiful and enigmatic Alicia Gris, with the help of the Sempere family, uncovers one of the most shocking conspiracies in all Spanish history.
Nine-year-old Alicia lost her parents during the Spanish Civil War when the Nacionales (the fascists) savagely bombed Barcelona in 1938. Twenty years later, she still carries the emotional and physical scars of that violent and terrifying time. Weary of her work as an investigator for Spain's secret police in Madrid, a job she has held for more than a decade, the twenty-nine-year old plans to move on. At the insistence of her boss, Leandro Montalvo, she remains to solve one last case: the mysterious disappearance of Spain's Minister of Culture, Mauricio Valls.
With her partner, the intimidating policeman Juan Manuel Vargas, Alicia discovers a possible clue—a rare book by the author Victor Mataix hidden in Valls' office in his Madrid mansion. Valls was the director of the notorious Montjuic Prison in Barcelona during World War II where several writers were imprisoned, including David Martín and Victor Mataix. Traveling to Barcelona on the trail of these writers, Alicia and Vargas meet with several booksellers, including Juan Sempere, who knew her parents.
As Alicia and Vargas come closer to finding Valls, they uncover a tangled web of kidnappings and murders tied to the Franco regime, whose corruption is more widespread and horrifying than anyone imagined. Alicia's courageous and uncompromising search for the truth puts her life in peril. Only with the help of a circle of devoted friends will she emerge from the dark labyrinths of Barcelona and its history into the light of the future.
In this haunting novel, Carlos Ruiz Zafón proves yet again that he is a masterful storyteller and pays homage to the world of books, to his ingenious creation of the Cemetery of Forgotten, and to that magical bridge between literature and our lives.
Reviews-
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April 15, 2018
Now 29, Alicia was orphaned when the Nacionales bombed Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and works for Spain's secret police. She's agreed to one last job: find the vanished minister of culture, Mauricio Valls. A rare book leads her to two authors imprisoned in Barcelona's notorious Montjuic Prison, which Valls directed, and to kidnapping and murder during the Franco regime. Readers get one last chance to wander through the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, first introduced in Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind. With a 50,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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July 15, 2018
Ruiz Zafón brings his sprawling Cemetery of Forgotten Books tetralogy to a close that throws in everything but the kitchen sink, but that somehow works.It's a very nice touch--spoiler alert--that the female lead of Ruiz Zafón's latest should use a pen to do in a bad guy in a spectacularly gruesome way: "He collapsed instantly," he writes gleefully, "like a puppet whose strings had been severed, his trembling body stretched out over the books." Books are everywhere, of course, inasmuch as this story begins and ends in the hands of the bookseller Daniel Sempere Gispert, who, as ever, is caught up in stories that are in part of his own devising and in part the product of other storytellers--altogether very Cervantesque, that. The story begins in the crucible of the Spanish Civil War, when a very young Alicia Gris, that female lead, comes into the orbit of Fermín Romero de Torres, himself a bookish fellow who connects to Alicia immediately through her love of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: "Anything to do with falling down a hole and bumping into madmen and mathematical problems is something I consider highly autobiographic," he tells her. Fermín harbors secrets: As readers of earlier volumes will know, he has been imprisoned as a spy in Franco's jails, and a certain jailer who has risen in the ranks of the postwar Nationalist government is due for some payback--retribution that involves, yes, books and writers and literary clues and all manner of puzzles. Ruiz Zafón clearly has had a great deal of fun in pulling this vast story together, and if one wishes for a little of the tightness of kindred spirit Arturo Perez-Reverte, his ability to keep track of a thousand threads while, in the end, celebrating the power of storytelling is admirable. Take that pen, for instance, which "is like a cat--it only follows the person who will feed it." Even, it seems, if that food is vitreous fluid....A satisfying conclusion to a grand epic that, of course, will only leave its fans wanting more.COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Starred review from September 10, 2018
Zafón follows 2012’s The Prisoner of Heaven with the conclusion to his Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet, a gripping and moving thriller set in Franco’s Spain that’s fully accessible to newcomers. In 1959, 29-year-old Alicia Gris, a capable, insightful operative working for the Spanish secret police in Madrid who will remind readers of Lisbeth Salander, is tapped by her superior, Leandro Montalvo, for a sensitive inquiry. Spain’s Minister of Culture, Don Mauricio Valls, who’s been the target of anonymous threats and was the subject of a failed assassination attempt, has disappeared. The authorities believe that Valls was pursuing a lead on his persecutor on his own. Leandro promises the emotionally worn-out Alicia that she can leave his employ after this last assignment. When Alicia investigates, she discovers that Valls hid an unusual and valuable children’s book in his Madrid mansion—The Labyrinth of the Spirits VII—and this in turn leads her to a Barcelona prison, where Valls was in charge during WWII. Fans of complex and literate mysteries featuring detectives with integrity working under oppressive and corrupt regimes will be well satisfied. -
August 1, 2018
The final entry in Zaf�n's Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet is a weighty bookend indeed, a sprawling story that braids together threads from the three previous books: The Shadow of the Wind? (2004), The Angel's Game? (2009), and The Prisoner of Heaven (2012). It's 1959 and Alicia Gris, beautiful, brilliant, and disabled since childhood by a Fascist bomb, is a reluctant investigator for Franco's secret police in Madrid. When tasked with investigating the disappearance of a government minister and partnered with Juan Manuel Vargas, a handsome detective with a sorrowful past, she follows a politically perilous trail that leads her to Barcelona, the turbulent days following the Spanish Civil War, and deep into the mysteries of Zaf�n's countless characters and the books that consume them. Gothic, operatic, and in many ways old-fashioned, this is a story about storytelling and survival, with the horrors of Francoist Spain present on every page. Compelling if unevenly paced, this is for readers who savor each word and scene, soaking in the ambience of Barcelona, Zaf�n's greatest character (after, perhaps, the irrepressible Ferm�n Romero de Torres).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.) -
August 1, 2018
Now 29, Alicia was orphaned when the Nacionales bombed Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and works for Spain's secret police. She's agreed to one last job: find the vanished minister of culture, Mauricio Valls. A rare book leads her to two authors imprisoned in Barcelona's notorious Montjuic Prison, which Valls directed, and to kidnapping and murder during the Franco regime. Readers get one last chance to wander through the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, first introduced in Ruiz Zaf�n's The Shadow of the Wind. With a 50,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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The Guardian
"A colossal achievement...a genre-crossing delight... Publishers dream of novels that appeal to habitual readers and to those seeking one big book to last a holiday, and that is what Zafon's quartet has delivered. His trick is to have linked multiple genres – fantasy, historical, romance, meta-fictional, police-procedural and political – through prose of atmospheric specificity." — The Guardian
"Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a gifted storyteller who knows how to capture his readers' attention. Packed with suspense, The Labyrinth of the Spirits is a gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller. As you read this chilling thriller, you feel as if your pounding heart is missing a beat." — Washington Book Review
"Intricate and sublime." — O: The Oprah Magazine, 15 Favorite Books of 2018
"A mystery, a love letter to books, and a magical adventure all wrapped up in one, this book is a masterful work of literature that will invigorate your love of reading." — Bustle
"A gripping and moving thriller set in Franco's Spain that's fully accessible to newcomers....29-year-old Alicia Gris, a capable, insightful operative working for the Spanish secret police...will remind readers of Lisbeth Salander... Fans of complex and literate mysteries featuring detectives with integrity working under oppressive and corrupt regimes will be well satisfied." — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"Ruiz Zafón clearly has had a great deal of fun in pulling this vast story together...His ability to keep track of a thousand threads while, in the end, celebrating the power of storytelling is admirable.... A satisfying conclusion to a grand epic that, of course, will only leave its fans wanting more." — Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"A compelling, multi-faceted, and haunting work of art told by a master storyteller. To say that the writing is brilliant is an understatement. Carlos Ruiz Zafón respects every word, taking his time to develop and do justice to the major, minor, and irrelevant characters, places, things, or situations in order to recreate a dark time in Spain's history and ensure that the reader not only bears witness to it but is immersed in it and feels it...An epic novel that is also an ode to writing and to the undying thirst for knowledge through reading." — Historical Novel Society
"Gothic, operatic, and in many ways old-fashioned, this is a story about storytelling and survival, with the horrors of Francoist Spain present on every page. Compelling...this is for readers who savor each word and scene, soaking in the ambience of Barcelona, Zafón's greatest character (after, perhaps, the irrepressible Fermín Romero de Torres)." — Booklist
"It is a bittersweet return to Barcelona for fans of Zafón, as he concludes his internationally beloved, labyrinthine Cemetery of Forgotten Books series (The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel's Game, The Prisoner of Heaven) with an operatic finale, drawing together all the threads as a rare book unveils a conspiracy that runs through Spanish history." "The plot is exquisitely intricate, like an elaborate steampunk timepiece. Alicia, a fragile but ferociously formidable, vampire-like seductress, is unforgettable. The pacing is exceptional, with its incessant, rolling waves of tension. Even the dialogue is remarkably sharp and fresh...The Labyrinth of the Spirits is a...
