The Angel's Game

I read Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind two and a half years ago (I had to look that up, I thought I read it a year ago – man does time fly!), and I really enjoyed the mystery and intrigue and bought his next novel shortly thereafter.  Well, I just got around to reading The Angel’s Game, another highly creative and original work by the Spanish author, and I was once again impressed with the storytelling and imagination.

In post-WWII Spain David Martin is a young writer struggling to make ends meat.  His mother abandoned the family when he was young and his father was killed in front of him shortly after.  The wealthy writer Pedro Vidal acts like a father figure to David and helps him out both with friendship and by helping him land a contract to write a series of novels under an alias for some shady publishers.  David can finally rent an old run-down house that he’s been eyeing and spends years working round the clock on his novels, at the expense of his own health.  One day a mysterious stranger approaches David and offers an incredibly large sum of money in return for writing a book.  Shortly after beginning work on this book, strange things start occurring.  The publishers David has been working for end up dead, a police investigator begins following him, and David begins to suspect that all is not right with this strange publisher.  David discovers that the former owner of his home died under strange circumstances after himself being contracted to write a book for an unknown stranger.  Could all of this be linked?

I once again found myself loving a Zafon novel (and got another one as a Christmas present – keep churning them out Carlos!).  The book is full of wonderful characters including David, Pedro, David’s love interest Christina, the mysterious publisher Andreas Corelli, and Isabella, a teenage girl who comes to work as a writing apprentice to David.  Zafon created a strange world, but the story was intriguing and kept me turning the pages.  I would say the only think I didn’t love about the book was the ending.  I thought maybe there would be a big reveal, but instead it seemed to be more of a philosophical ending, and I have to admit – I didn’t get it.  I mean, I think I’m smart and could come up with some symbolic thoughts around the ending, but really I was left a little underwhelmed.  But ten pages out of 500 do not make a book bad (even if it was the ending) and so I still highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys creative works or art.

Next up:  The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (as Mrs. pointed out I was on a WWII Germany kick in 2013 between this, In The Garden of Beasts, and The Book Thief)