LITERARY FICTION

THE LABYRINTH OF THE SPIRITS by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (W&N €14.99, )

AVID readers of Carlos Ruiz Zafon will barely need a review to persuade them to read this, the concluding novel in his rollicking Cemetery Of Forgotten Books fantasy series.

It introduces Alicia, a maverick police operative tasked with finding a disappeared culture minister in Franco’s government. Her story reflects Spain’s history — she lost her parents in the Civil War and was wounded in the fascist bombing of Barcelona in 1938 — and here lies the secret to Zafon’s success.

Neither too geeky nor too highbrow, his genre-mashing novels provide a high-definition, alternative account of Spain’s turbulent 20th-century history, with added Hollywood blockbuster thrills. I was hooked.

THE DEATH OF NOAH GLASS by Gail Jones (Text €15.40)

THIS novel from the acclaimed Australian opens with the death of Martin’s father Noah, an art historian drowned in Sydney. Two days after his funeral, he is named a suspect in the theft of a 19th-century sculpture.

Martin flies to Palermo, which Noah visited just before he died, to investigate. But when he is savagely beaten, it’s clear there was more to his father’s life than he knew.

Jones is moving on grief and memory, yet the characters and story are often lost in the denseness of her ideas.