For a week, no-one knows where he is. When he is found, he refuses, or is unable, to say where he has been. This is Oscar's story.
Oscar has just three hours of freedom in his heavily regimented boarding-school day, time he spends exploring the half-neglected avenues of old Barcelona, once playgrounds of the rich and powerful. There, he befriends 16-year-old Marina, beautiful, self-possessed, and enigmatic.
Marina introduces Oscar to an inexplicable mystery; on the fourth Sunday of every month, a veiled, black-garbed woman visits an unnamed grave in a forgotten graveyard and leaves a single red rose.
So begins a gothic horror story that takes Oscar and Marina to 1950s Barcelona to unravel a tale of love, fortune and power.
However, not all is as it seems, and Oscar and Marina are soon confronted with the horror of what some will do to triumph over the frailties of the human body, including the greatest frailty of all, death.
And when Oscar discovers that Marina herself is harbouring a secret, he realises to his dismay that he himself is not immune.
Marina has all the elements of a complex, multifaceted story, richly drawn and atmospheric. Carlos Ruiz Zafon has an innate sense of imagery, and the time-worn, decrepit and decaying world of byzantine Barcelona is richly brought to life.
However, I felt the main plot fell somewhat short of its potential. Oscar and Marina's reactions were predictable, even cliched, and I felt the unravelling of the plot hinged on subsidiary characters carelessly divulging intimate secrets despite having only just met the pair.
More satisfying are the relationships between Oscar, Marina and Marina's father, German, which are handled with sensitivity and subtlety.
Although somewhat one-dimensional, the book is richly drawn and remains an engaging read.
- Maria van't Klooster is an avid Dunedin reader.
Win a copy
The ODT has five copies of Marina, by Carlos Ruiz-Zafon (RRP $37), to give away courtesy of Text Publishing. For your chance to win a copy, email helen.speirs@odt.co.nz with your name and postal address in the body of the email, and ''Marina Book Competition'' in the subject line, by 5pm on Tuesday, November 26.
