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Oct. 10th, 2018 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Prisoner of Heaven
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
This is the third and penultimate book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. We return to Daniel Sempere and his family, several months after the events of The Shadow of the Wind. This time a mysterious stranger's visit to the bookshop uncovers the story of Daniel's friend Fermin's time as a political prisoner in the notorious Montjuic prison, in which he got to know David Martin. This in turn leads to the discovery of a devastating secret about Daniel's long-dead mother.
I very much enjoyed revisiting these characters and Ruiz Zafon's marvelous mid-century Barcelona. The plot this time was little more contained and straightforward, concentrating on only a few characters and a brief point in their lives. I knew before I started reading that there is a fourth and final book in the series (not yet translated into English), which I found helpful as I could read it as a setup for the finale. Otherwise, The Prisoner of Heaven would have seemed thin and lacking resolution. Rather, it is a very effective and compelling bit of stage-setting that sheds light on several lingering mysteries from the previous books.
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
This is the third and penultimate book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. We return to Daniel Sempere and his family, several months after the events of The Shadow of the Wind. This time a mysterious stranger's visit to the bookshop uncovers the story of Daniel's friend Fermin's time as a political prisoner in the notorious Montjuic prison, in which he got to know David Martin. This in turn leads to the discovery of a devastating secret about Daniel's long-dead mother.
I very much enjoyed revisiting these characters and Ruiz Zafon's marvelous mid-century Barcelona. The plot this time was little more contained and straightforward, concentrating on only a few characters and a brief point in their lives. I knew before I started reading that there is a fourth and final book in the series (not yet translated into English), which I found helpful as I could read it as a setup for the finale. Otherwise, The Prisoner of Heaven would have seemed thin and lacking resolution. Rather, it is a very effective and compelling bit of stage-setting that sheds light on several lingering mysteries from the previous books.
