The Labyrinth of the Spirits: A Novel (Cemetery of Forgotten Books) Hardcover – September 18, 2018

If you adored Shadow of the Wind, this novel will not disappoint. If you're new to the series, welcome. I'm jealous of the first time reading experience you're about to have. One of the wonderful things about these books (this is the 4th and supposedly final) is that they can be read in any order and while they're all standalone stories, each adds a layer of context and insight into the others. It is truly a labyrinth of storytelling and masterfully done. Having said that, knowing the first three books added to my experience reading The Labyrinth of the Spirits. It's not mandatory to begin with The Shadow of the Wind, but I would recommend it.Atmosphere abounds in this genre-defying book. I felt like I was right there with the characters, twisting through the streets of Barcelona, hiding in the shadows, breathing in gunpowder, living off of caffeine and adrenaline, and pushing through too-little sleep to uncover the next piece of the puzzle. The Semperes and Fermin Romero de Torres return, as do other friends and enemies from the previous books, but the main protagonist in this story is Alicia Gris, a bold and alluring woman assigned to investigate a missing person (a returning character who I'll let you discover). The pacing is fantastic. It starts with short snippets into various POVs and story lines as a sort of appetizer before slowly building on the main mystery of the book. You gradually uncover more as the plot builds and you delve deeper into the heart of the city and characters. About halfway through the pieces begin to fall together with increasing speed and for the next 200 pages or so it's non-stop, unputdownable thrills. Yes, there are a few twists, one of which actually made me close my book in disbelief for several minutes before I felt capable of continuing. Nothing felt contrived. Everything felt fitting. I didn't feel cheated or misled. The pace slows down again at the end of the book to ease you back to normal and fill in the gaps. In the end you also get quite a bit of insight into what Ruiz Zafon values in the craftsmanship of writing, which is woven in along with acknowledgments of sorts in a clever way that not everyone may not love, but I quite enjoyed. It is one satisfying, gorgeous read.Like the other books in the series this installment is a wonderful mix of genres: mystery, historical fiction, police procedural, political thriller, romance, fantasy... If you're looking for a fun, light mystery this isn't for you. It's over 800 pages, with multiple characters and sub-plots to keep track of, and, while not gratuitous, it has some torture and squeamish bits to make you uncomfortable if you're highly sensitive. However, if you enjoy modern Gothic tales dripping with atmosphere or detailed mysteries with complex histories to sink your teeth into, this book is fantastic. The series is truly a gift to book lovers, not only for its gorgeous storytelling and compelling characters, but also because it's a series about books, featuring the most fantastic library imaginable, a charming bookstore, lovable booksellers, mysterious authors, the process of writing, the magic of storytelling, and the powerful, undeniable hold that a treasured book can have on a reader.I was a fan of all previous books, but if readers of the series were disappointed in The Angel's Game or The Prisoner of Heaven, fear not. The Labyrinth of the Spirits is Carlos Ruiz Zafon as his masterful best. Despite its length, the story flew by and every page felt necessary and engaging. I will be returning to this book, and the series, many times in the future. The atmosphere and level of storytelling are unparalleled.

Another great read from my personal favorite author. C.R. Zafon weaves such intricate and addictive stories with a unique aura of suspense I was, for months, eagerly awaiting this latest offering. The world he has created in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and it's characters is just magical. The odd feel in the air of post Spanish Civil War Barcelona makes it feel as if not only are the strangest occurrences possible, they are terrifyingly likely. Zombies, gratuitous violence and blood and guts are crutches for lesser writers. C.R. Will scare and inspire the reader with his masterful storytelling alone. Thank you so.......much Carlos!

Highly recommended, even if you are not a Zafon fan. Just need to love books and reading about them. Liking gothic stories helps.

It isn't often that a novel has the power to stay with me for days, even weeks after I put the book down. Perhaps it is because I read the CFB in order, or perhaps because Labyrinth was the best, but I found myself wanting to go back to the beginning of the series, like visiting old, familiar friends. To Google things like "map of Barcelona, 1939"; track down the sparse illustrations to see more of what their authors had created, and to learn more about the Spain of Hemmingway's time and before. There's a part of my mind that doesn't want to believe that these people aren't real, that this isn't a work of fiction, and I suppose that's the best review I can offer. For those who are just starting this book or any in the series, I envy you. Although they all stand alone, my advice is to get all four, start at the beginning. You will be rewarded with some of the greatest storytelling of this age and, like me, will be crestfallen when someday you realize there is no more.

Ruiz Zafon finished his "Labyrinth" series with a very powerful book. There are multiple story lines that were all somehow connected; and through those we reconnected with many of the characters that we met in earlier books. It is not a book that can be read in one day, and the reader needs to pay attention to the time that each chapter takes place. The history of Spain in the 1930s until the 1950s was sometimes a bit too much, and I found myself skipping over paragraphs for that reason.The end of the book and the series is overall very satisfying. The only character that remained a mystery to me was Alicia; who sometimes came across as overbearing and annoying. I won't describe details because I don't want to give anything away in respect of the ending and twists and turns.Overall, I am sad to say goodbye to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books... Wouldn't we all love to find such a treasure?

Shadow of The Wind is my favourite book of all time. I’ve read all of Zafon’s work, but nothing has come remotely close to Shadow....until now.The Labyrinth of the Spirits is the fourth and final book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, and it’s a very strong ending to the intertwined stories of literary intrigue and complex characters. I don’t want to give away any of the plot - I didn’t know much going into it, and I’m glad, because this story had more layers than an onion, and it was a magical experience to be able to peel them away one by one. All of the characters from previous books feature in the story - Daniel, Bea, little Julian, old Sempere, Isaac, many of their neighbours from Shadow, Carax, and of course the absolutely wonderful Fermin Romero de Torres, who has to be one of the funniest and warmest characters ever created. I would have liked a little more Daniel and Bea if I'm honest. There are also new characters, led by the tough and enigmatic Alicia Gris, a kind of Lisbeth Salander of times gone by.It’s a long and complex story set against the dark backdrop of Franco’s Spain. The writing, translated as beautifully as ever by Lucia Graves, is sumptuous and delicious to read (aside from a couple of clunky bits, which I forgive). This book comes a close second to Shadow and I will probably need to read it again.I’m feeling a little emotional that it’s all over. Might have to go and read Shadow for a ninth time...

What a fabulous and absorbing read this novel is. It's 800+ pages have kept me enthralled all week. I read the three preceding volumes in the sequence as they came out, but as years have intervened, my memory of them was hazy. In the event, though it would have been an advantage to remember the back stories to this novel, it didn't matter that much, you can read it independently of the others. My impression is, however, that the earlier books were gentler, more magical, more gothic and whimsical, more mysterious and atmospheric. These qualities in this volume have been replaced, to a certain extent, by a darker, historical realism. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a dusty, rather forlorn place now, barely surviving the bombing raids during the civil war, a place of brutal hunts and murders; however, it survives and continues to be the repository of books the world has forgotten, a kind of hidden temple to the rites of art and literature.The interweaving threads of the story are complex. We begin with the heroine of much of the book, Alicia, being rescued by the inimitable Fermin during a bombing raid, in which she is permanently wounded in the side, carrying her pain wherever she goes thereafter. We meet her again as an adult working during the Franco regime for the political police as an agent, one of the best; but she's had enough and wants out, once she's dealt with a final case. That involves the disappearance of a Government minister, Valls. During her quest to locate Valls she teams up with an incorruptible colleague; she gradually discovers that she's being set up by her own bosses, who turn out to be evil incarnate. It has to be said that the level of cold-blooded violence, involving the extremes of man's inhumanity to man, is deep in this book - no comfort read here! Be prepared for graphic descriptions of torture, murder, suffering. Alicia is a highly intelligent and resourceful, if enigmatic, agent: it's good to see a woman taking centre stage in this darkly machismo world.Once she tracks down Valls and uncovers a history of the abuse of children and their families at the highest level of government; once she discovers how Daniel's mother Isabella was murdered; once she dispatches her enemies with cold-blooded ruthlessness, she escapes herself, about two-thirds of the way through the book. There are cliffhangers galore in these pages, surprise after surprise, all brilliantly controlled and written: a visceral thriller. From then on, the focus shifts to Daniel, his quest to find the truth about his family, his relationship with his son Julian. It is Julian who winds up the novel in an interesting episode of meta-fiction that includes the mysterious Julian Carax, co-author, it seems, of the present quartet.The translation flows like a dream. The whole enterprise is a significant and remarkable, not to say unique, achievement. The kind of book that draws you into it world - dark, funny, tender, mysterious - and never lets you go.

This applies to the whole series of The Cementary of Forgotten Books. I started reading them in adolescence, and now in the prime of adulthood, I found myself in tears as I closed the Labyrinth for the 1st time.Don't even consider it, dear reader.Buy it. It changed my world. Odds are it'll change tours.

The first 3 Cemetery of Forgotten Books novels are some of my favourite books so I was excited to read this long-awaited fourth entry in the series, but unfortunately it was massively disappointing.The book is overly long (twice the length of Shadow and Angel's Game, and three times the length of Prisoner of Heaven) and it is so slow paced that it is at times a chore to read. There are a number of different plot lines, some of which don't really go anywhere, and three villains who are never developed at all - the likes of Valls and Fumero in previous books were fun to hate while the antagonists in this one are just kind of... there to act menacing/insane for no real reason. The main plot of the missing person is mostly dropped for the last half of the book meaning there is no central focus to drive the story forward and it ends up meandering around creating weird relationships between characters and wrapping up the numerous threads in unsatisfying and sometimes unbelievable ways.The story jumps around between different viewpoints with little consistency, but the bulk of the book is told from the perspective of Alicia who I found to be rather dull and repetitive. She also isn't developed very well, even though throughout the book she probably had more pages than expertly developed Daniel, David and Fermin had in previous titles, and I found myself not caring what happened tk her and feeling baffled that the other characters cared so much about her fate.The final 50 pages are a sort of bizarre and lengthy epilogue which tries to tie up the entire series and left me with a sour taste, partly because it was bad and partly because it makes it seem as though this may be the last time we see this world and these characters, and it feels sad to leave it on such a low.

Outstanding! This is a magnificent book and brings the series to a fantastic finish. It feels like about five books in one.It’s a great whodunnit mystery story .It’s a fabulous evocation of a time and place.It’s a beautiful love story.It poses deep questions about the things we value and how we should respect them.It’s an eye popping look at post Civil War Spanish history.It scared me at times and also made me laugh out loud numerous times as the dialogue sizzles with snappy lines throughout.I have read the previous three books in this series a number of times and read them all again in order to set this fourth instalment up properly.Shadow of the Wind is one of my all time favourite books and still delights.The Angels Game was a worthy follow up but veered a bit too far into the fantastical for my taste.The Prisoner of Heaven was avidly awaited and, while enjoyable, felt a bit as though it had been hurried out to keep us happy. The ending felt like a set up for book 4.Well Book 4 is like all the previous three combined , but better!Hard to imagine I know but it is that big and that good. The characters remain marvellous and the feeling for me was that this is the book that was originally envisaged but the other three had to be written first. The ending is perfect and might induce a tear.I really cannot recommend this too highly. If you enjoyed any of the earlier books, you will love this.