The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruis Zafon

I first fell in love with Zafon earlier this year when I read The Shadow of the Wind, Zafon's most famous work, as translated into English. I bought the next installment in the series, The Angel's Game, right away in spite of my better judgement (at the time!) because I have a history of not enjoying subsequent books in the series.  And I'm glad that I did.

The novel is about David Martin, a young man born into poverty into Barcelona and his desire to be a master storyteller and novel writer. At the start of the novel, David is living in a boarding house and is writing penny, murder mysteries for a sketchy duo of publishers that have, essentially, enslaved him. He then receives an invitation from a mysterious Parisian publisher and eventually meets the publisher, who is well-dressed, well educated and well spoken and, as the Mafia is wont to do, who makes David an offer he can't refuse. David has learned that he has a terminal brain tumor right around the time that he accepts the proposal and accepts the proposal in large part because this mysterious publisher has promised that David will live if David writes the novel. David begins the research for the book and becomes slowly consumed by the process, descending into a complex mix of mystery and gothic.

The book started slowly.  There is a lot of laying the groundwork and there are also parts where Zafon is laying the plot and religious and historical groundwork for the action that occurs in the second half of the book.  There is no doubt in my mind that Zafon is a master storyteller in any language.  I read the English translation and it was a divine story and translation.  I was engaged in large part because the book is about characters that love everything about books: reading them, writing them, consuming them at any cost.  And Zafon's style is wonderful.  I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of this book.