THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN

The Prisoner of Heaven, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, HarperCollins, 2012, 278 pp (translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves)

 

Surely you have read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I have rarely met anyone who hasn't. I read it in 2005 and had this to say about it:

 

"Yesterday I finished The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It is longish (487 pages) but I loved every minute of reading this book and it was a fast read. The story takes place in Barcelona spanning the years of the Spanish Civil War up to the 1960s. As a young boy, Daniel, son of a bookseller, is mourning the loss of his mother. His father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books where he is allowed to choose one book. His choice is The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax. Daniel reads all night, is entranced and begins to search for other books by this author.

So I am immediately entranced because it is a book book and that is exactly what I do when I read a book that I love. I look for more by that author. But Daniel's search opens up a mystery which becomes an epic of murder, madness and hopeless love. The successful mixture of genres is only one of the wonders of Zafon's writing. He also now and then drops in philosophical, political or humorous bits that are clearly his views, but done with such a deft touch that you hardly notice. The characters are excellent, the mystery is gripping and the descriptions of Barcelona are truly stunning.

Then he pulls off a great ending. I want more books by this author."

 

I read the next book in what is now a four book series, The Angel's Game, as soon as I could get my hands on an Advance Readers Copy in 2009. Not all readers were entirely pleased to be taken into a much darker and more Gothic tale, set just after WWI in Barcelona. I was as entranced as I was by the first book.

 

Somehow I missed the fact that there have been two more books since. I learned about those from a fellow blogger recently, ran out and bought both of them.

Compared to the first two, The Prisoner of Heaven felt much shorter, almost like a novella, but it sizzles with just as much adventure, danger and history. Daniel Sempere, the boy from The Shadow of the Wind, is now married with a new baby, named Julian of course.

The irrepressible Fermin Romero de Torres, Daniel's close friend, is about to be married but has become mysteriously distracted and depressed. By the time Daniel finally forces Fermin to confide in him, a dangerous man and the threat of a terrible secret involve both of them in a terrifying adventure. As the two friends search for true events from the 1940s and the early days of Franco's dictatorship, as the day of Fermin's wedding approaches, the suspense has built to an unbearable pitch.

I enjoyed The Prisoner of Heaven in equal amounts to the previous books. There are scenes in a prison, involving an escape by a writer/political prisoner, in which that prisoner refers several times to Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo. I have purchased a copy. In the coming year I plan to read long books, the ones I have been putting off all this year in an attempt to read more books. The Count will be one of them.

On the very last page of the paperback edition of The Prisoner of Heaven, Zafon provides a list of "Dead Fellows You Should See and Read Frequently:"

*Charles Dickens

*William Faulkner

*Charlotte Bronte

John Dos Passos

*Emile Zola

*Honore de Balzac

Victor Hugo

Alexandre Dumas

*Graham Greene

*Raymond Chandler

*James M Cain 

I have read at least one book by the starred ones. How about you?