THE LABYRINTH OF THE SPIRITS

The Labyrinth of the Spirits, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, HarperCollins, 2018, 805 pp (translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves)

 

I have now read all four books in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. Thanks to blogger friend Marianne in Germany at Let's Read, whose review of this book reminded me that I had never finished the series. This is the longest of the book but I did not mind. I wanted to stay with those characters for as long as I could.

 

In The Labyrinth of the Spirits, Zafon introduces a new character, Alicia. She is as badass as they come and works for Spain's secret police in Madrid. She wants out so her handler says if she does one more assignment, she can walk away. 

 

Of course the assignment is tough beyond any she has ever had and will test every strength she has. It leads her to Daniel Sempre (the central character in The Shadow of the Wind) and to Daniel's best friend Fermin, who we learn for the first time saved her life during the Spanish Civil War when she was nine years old. Her assignment is to find the former director of the Montjuic Castle prison, featured in the third book, The Prisoner of Heaven. In that prison were certain authors and the one who is still alive may hold the key to the mystery of that former director's recent disappearance. 

 

Alicia is a fascinating and complex character who puts most spies I have read about to shame and also loves to read. Spain is still under the autocratic rule of Franco meaning that crime and oppression wait at every turn.

 

By the end, every mystery in the Sempre family has been solved. The bad people get what is coming to them. Best of all Daniel finally finds out what really happened to his mother. As in every book, reading and literature and authors and bookstores and the librarian of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books play pivotal roles.

Should one read these books in order? Carlos Ruiz Zafon claims that is not necessary but I found that each book circles around to the previous ones, always expanding this wonderful tale. Many people read The Shadow of the Wind and then felt let down by The Angel's Game. I admit that was a dark and scary tale with no relief but now that I have read The Labyrinth of the Spirits, it makes complete sense why he had to write it as part of the series.

Here are my reviews of the first three books:

The Shadow of the Wind

The Angels Game

The Prisoner of Heaven 

 

Have you read any of these books?