The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Zafon is an excellent story-teller whose first novel, The Shadow of the Wind, I thoroughly enjoyed, so when I heard about his second novel, I wasted no time in purchasing it for my birthday.  I found time throughout the rainy days we had to read it, and I found it thoroughly engrossing. He is a wonderful story-teller with a great sense of colour and mood: the novel is set in 1930s Barcelona - the predominant colours here are black, grey and white- there's lots of rain, mist, shadowy homes, eerie public buildings, scenes  in which there is lots of rich detail, only to be re-visited and find them abandoned for years.  The narrator is David Martin ( with a Spanish accent on the "i") , a writer who finds himself contracted to one Andreas Corelli to write a new religion, even as he is ghost-writing a novel for a rich friend, and trying to finish one of his own for some shady lawyers who have him also under contract.  David lives in a huge mansion which has always fascinated him, a place full of old smells and hidden rooms, mysterious visitors, and one which is visited frequently by three police officers, who think David is responsible for some murders they're investigating. The highlight of the book for me is his visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which also appeared in Zafon's first novel, and it is here he finds a book which leads him to discover the truth about the former inhabitants of his home. I can't say whether I completely understood what was happening- there were lots of odd twists and turns, and I ended up wondering how many of these characters, including David, were actually alive, but it didn't matter: I enjoyed the ride!