This books follows the story of a group of friends who are supposed to leave their orphanage to start adult life this summer. Things get complicated when a girl and her grandma on the run appear, the main character Ben has a vision of a train full of small children dying in a big fire, and a mysterious man wants to kill Ben and the girl. It is in the hands of Ben and his friends to discover the mysteries of Kolkata while trying to preserve their lives.

What Zafón does great is creating a mysterious and dark atmosphere while keeping the tension very high. Even though this is a young adult series, the stakes are high and there is no promise that the characters will actually make it out alive. The mysteries are also well-created, though I wish there were less scenes where some characters just tell their stories and instead they piece them together from other clues and their findings. But it seems like Zafon just really likes that storytelling method, so whatever. I also really like his characters. Zafon’s only fault is being so hetero lol (But on a serious note, he always puts some straight romance to his books and while it’s usually cute, some of his characters have gay energy and then they came out as straight. Disappointing.)