Literary master Carlos Ruiz Zafon has written a lavishly exciting adventure story

However, it turns out his books are the perfect place to turn for escape at a time when that’s what many of us need.

This book is the fourth and concluding book in his Cemetery of Forgotten Books quadrilogy, but it works equally well as a stand-alone literary treat.

There is the occasional sense that he’s going over old ground and precising previous events, but it never jars.

And while The Labyrinth of the Spirits weighs in at more than 800 pages, any doubts you have about tackling a beast of this size will disappear on the first page of this book.

Literally on the first page.

From its opening paragraphs, this is a story that grabs you with both hands and doesn’t let go.

Zafon takes us to Franco’s Spain, where the marvellous Alicia Gris – one of those characters who leaps off the page and forces you to love her – is sent to investigate the disappearance of Mauricio Valls, the Minister for Culture in Franco’s regime.

Alicia works for a shadowy secret organisation and is reluctantly partnered up with a policeman called Juan Manuel Vargas – another delicious creation – for the duration of the case.

One of the first clues is a mysterious book found in Valls’s office.

And this is a book all about books – the pleasure, pain and mess of writing them, and the redemptive force of finding the right one at the right time to read.

It is unashamedly sentimental and melodramatic about the power of great literature.

Zafon breaks so many rules: he head hops between characters in the same scene, mixes metaphors, and is wildly self-indulgent with his descriptions of the importance of writing, especially towards the end of the book.

But I don’t care. At all.

His writing is gorgeous and his storytelling is nothing short of spectacular.

This is a lavishly exciting adventure story written by a master.

By the end, you’ll wish there were another 800 pages to go.