"Ruiz Zafon provides, along with sex and death,...a pervasive sense of the childish joy of credulity--of surrendering to a story and letting it take you where it will, whatever the consequences....THE ANGEL'S GAME has emotional truth to burn because [he] uses every narrative technique in the book, high and...low....[H]e always falls back on storytelling. It's the master he serves, and the devil he knows." "THE ANGEL'S GAME...[is] a wickedly clever tale that turns readers into accomplices of [Zafon's] obsession with books, the quixotic characters who pen and peddle them and mystical Barcelona.....[T]he city makes the writer, and Zafón once more creates a tale -- a Harry Potter for grown-ups, a mammoth parable, an operatic morality play -- worthy of Barcelona." "THE ANGEL'S GAME...is as much a literary marvel as its predecessor, [THE SHADOW OF THE WIND]. Like SHADOW, Zafon's latest novel is a masterfully written love affair with books and words as well as an obsessive tribute to passionate love....[Zafon's] visionary storytelling prowess is a genre unto itself." "[T]his is good summer page-turning thanks to the vibrant secondary cast....[Protagonist David] Martin becomes embroiled in a murder mystery of sorts, but his skewed perspective and untrustworthy narration elevate it above a simple whodunit." "Zafon proves himself a magician, vividly invoking bygone Barcelona while unscrolling a byzantine plot at breakneck pace....[H]e seems the perfect author to help prove that serious stuff can also be entertaining as hell."