By Carlos Ruis Zafón

This long novel revolves around its protagonists’ lives in Barcelona during the earlier part of the 20th century to -1960's. The intricate plot combines doomed love, murder, power, class differences, and the vulnerability of those living under a dictatorship.  The two main protagonists inhabit different time periods, making this book a novel within a novel.  Daniel who lives in post-war Barcelona is a son of a book store owner. He comes across the book: The Shadow of the Wind and starts investigating the earlier life of the writer: Julian Carax. Daniel discovers that someone has been eliminating all the books written by Julian Carax whose fate is filled with mystery. As Daniel searches for the answers to his quest, his own life unravels, and the grueling circumstances in Julian Carax’s existence.  We get embroiled in the complicated history of these two people during difficult periods in Spain. We meet other people, colorful, sad, courageous, cruel, dead and alive. The political happenings are like shadows following the incidents in the story. I wish it would have explored more details about the eras. Yet each author chooses his/her method of allusion of the past.  Though the novel is full of tragedies, it ends with a hopeful note as per the future in Spain with the fall of the dictatorship.




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