He has accepted a lucrative commission from a mysterious editor from Paris, a glib, natty gent who claims to represent something known as Éditions de la Lumière - which, David has begun to suspect, means that he may actually have made a deal with the devil. This oddly precise rate is a clue to the source of David’s otherwise inexplicable agonies. Samson, in a monthly series of books entitled “City of the Damned,” which demands, he says, a steady pace of 6.66 pages a day. In fact, he cranks out what he calls “penny dreadful” prose with enviable facility, first in the form of a weekly newspaper serial called “The Mysteries of Barcelona” - his hometown - and later, under the pseudonym Ignatius B. It’s not that he has a tough time dreaming up stories or frets much over le mot juste. Through a dizzingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.David Martín, the young hero and narrator of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s moody, seductive new novel, “The Angel’s Game,” is one of those writers who suffer the torments of the damned in the practice of their craft.

Once again, Zafón takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in the Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. He is to write a book unlike anything that has ever existed-a book with the power to change hearts and minds. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city's underworld.

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. 'The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that, when I opened those windows, its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets I could capture on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen…' From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angel's Game-a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love.

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón