'The Angel's Game' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - Book Review

The Angel's Game is Carlos Ruiz Zafon's exercise in spinning the reader through a Faustian labyrinth filled with gothic mystery and tragic romance. This is sumptuous and dark fairy tale writing, with some serious thoughts on good and evil and the search for the human soul. Many memorable characters search for solace in this world; sadly, they, along with the reader, don't find much comfort or clarity in a disappointing conclusion that is more shadow than revelation.

Act One: City of the Damned. Act Two: Lux Aeterna. Act Three: Angel's Game. This is how Carols Ruiz Zafon breaks up his newest and darkest tale, The Angel's Game. With these thoughts in mind, the reader should know the mysterious game they are about to experience is one filled with perception, deception and manipulation, the damned potentially every character they meet. This Game is beautifully wrought, but will it fascinate every player?

David Martin is a young aspiring novelist. He copes with writing for the newspaper, gets his break, and begins to pump out crime noir dimebacks, selling his soul away to write stories he could care less about. In the meantime, he loses a love, loses a friend, and perhaps begins to lose his sanity as he meets a mysterious new editor who asks him to write the seemingly impossible: to create a new religion.

Despite this intriguing premise and the thick haunting atmosphere that soaks this book, it's lacking in a strong enough character to be a thoroughfare. David is just not that sympathetic or likeable. Christina, David's love, isn't as lovely as he or Zafon envisions, nor Andreas Corelli, "the boss," as diabolical as one would hope (or dread) in the end. And what of the angel whose game it is? Well, we know certain ones fell. And it seems Zafon's Barcelona is the place where most landed.

The greatest confession I can give is that the most fascinating character is one that is the prominent focus of the second act. Her name is Isabella and she is the Lux Aeterna of the entire novel. If only this could be her story, than perhaps The Angel's Game would have been worth its price from beginning to end.