The angel's game - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

'The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that, when I opened those windows each evening, its streets would whisper stories to me...'

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martin, makes his living writing sensational novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city's underworld. But perhaps his darkest imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at an unsolved mystery.

Like a slow poison, the history of the place and an impossible love bring David close to despair. But then he receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike any other - a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realises that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.

Set in the turbulent 1920s, The Angel's Game takes us back to the gothic universe of the Cemetery of the Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons bookshop, in a masterful tale about the magic of books and the darkest corners of the human soul.