The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
I have to side with Patrick on this one–I liked reading SOTW, and I think it’s a well-written book, but it didn’t blow me away. In the several weeks since I finished it, neither the book nor its characters has particularly lingered in my mind. Perhaps this is the way most mystery books are, but I found it rather odd that not much actually occurred in the narrative; rather, much of it consisted of the protagonist Daniel talking to people who related to him things that had happened in the past. It sort of reminded me of a computer RPG where you have to go around and gather clues from various NPCs.
All that said, I am glad I read it. In a way it reminded me of a less willfully-erudite version of an Eco novel, which is no bad thing. The parallelism between various stories was a pretty nice touch.