The Angel's Game (Spanish 2008, English 2009) By Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's novel The Angel's Game takes us back to his gothic creation The Cemetery of Forgetten Books. It's an eerie read.

His previous novel, The Shadow of the Wind, introduced us to the underside of Barcelona, telling us of a young man’s initiation into The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a depository of all things sacred in literature, with an exclusive membership. The Cemetery is a book lover’s Heaven, with a direct connection to a tormented private Hell.
 

Continuing with The Cemetery's theme, The Angel’s Game leads us down the path with David Martin, an aspiring writer who begins his career in Barcelona, circa 1917, as a cub reporter at a fading newspaper, The Voice of Industry. He eventually is allowed to write a fictional crime story for the paper, which turns into a highly popular weekly serialization.
 

Success, as it is called, comes when Martin is approached by representatives of an unnamed third-party (The Angel) offering to underwrite his career … with some strings attached. He accepts, but then finds himself strangled and terrified by the strings, and develops severe writers’ block, further compromising his predicament. To help, an unlikely mentor, the editor/publisher of The Voice of Industry, sponsors his membership in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
 

It is difficult to say more about this book without issuing a “spoiler alert,” so I won’t. But it has it all: a gothic mansion, a presence from beyond, murders, revenge, police department collusion, and a love triangle.
 

The Angel’s Game is every bit as good as its pilot The Shadow of the Wind, and the second of what one hopes is an Anne Rice style series of novels. Reading these in sequence is probably helpful, but not necessary.