The Midnight Palace

The sixteenth year of the twentieth century. Calcutta. Lieutenant Pike, who knows exactly that he has only a few hours left to live, sacrifices himself to save the tiny boy Ben and his twin sister, Sh—. From the sixteenth year onward, sixteen years pass, and in the city an odd, deadly fiery specter appears. Again and again it kills innocent people— and all of them have something to do with the twins growing up, Ben and Sh—. What kind of creature is it? And why does it persistently get closer to the twins? The reader must solve an amazing puzzle in which every word, every room, every glance at the fire, and every step along Calcutta’s roads carries a hidden meaning…

Carlos Ruiz Zafón is a “literary phenomenon of the early twenty-first century,” the most popular Spanish-language author of recent years, who burst onto world literature with novels such as “The Shadow of the Wind” and “The Angel Game,”—translated into all the leading languages of the world and receiving a whole collection of national and international awards and prizes. Critics call his works “a new cultural phenomenon of contemporary prose,” while readers simply enjoy his books.