The City of Mist is an extraordinary collection that offers eleven brief but vivid glimpses into the hidden corners of Barcelona, past and present. Along the way, readers will encounter some familiar characters (pulp novelist David Martin, Andreas Corelli, the bookselling de Sempere family), along with a host of newly created characters whose stories will resonate beyond the printed page. In the course of these tales, a homeless ex-convict finds solace—and perhaps love—among the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War. A novelist recreates the horrific circumstances of his own birth. A drop of dragon’s blood confers a bizarre and violent immortality on a member of the Spanish Inquisition. A fallen angel accompanies an unnamed narrator through the final moments of human history.

These and seven other stories illustrate the range and depth of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s peerless imagination. The City of Mist is a great writer’s parting gift to his legion of devoted readers, and it is an extraordinary gift indeed.

These stories, like the best of Zafon’s previous work, are luminous, exhilarating, and good for the soul. They are the clear product of a modern master who left us much too soon.