The novel, set in Barcelona in the period following the Spanish Civil War, is about a young boy, Daniel Sempere. Immediately after the war, Daniel's father takes him to the Secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a huge library of ancient and forgotten titles lovingly preserved by a select few initiates. According to tradition, all initiates in this secret place can take a book from it and must protect it for life The Shadow of the Wind of. Julián Carax. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay That morning Daniel takes the book home and reads it, completely engrossed then tries to look for other books by this unknown author, but he can't find any, all he encounters are the stories of a strange man - who calls himself Laín Coubert, after a character in the book who appears to be the Devil - who he has been searching for. Carax's books for decades, buying and burning them all. The novel is actually a story within a story. The boy, Daniel Sempere, in his quest to discover Julian's other works, becomes involved in tracing the entire history of Carax. His friend Fermin Romero de Torres, who was imprisoned and tortured in Montjuic Castle for being involved in espionage against anarchists during the war - being himself a government secret service agent - helps Daniel in several ways, but their investigation in the darkness The past of a number of long-dead or long-forgotten people unleashes the dark forces of the murderous Inspector Fumero. Thus, revealing a long story that has been buried in the depths of oblivion, Daniel and Fermin come across a love story, the beautiful but tragic story of Julian and Penelope, both missing since 1919, that is, almost thirty years earlier. Julian, son of the hatter Antoni Fortuny and his wife Sophie Carax (but he preferred to use his mother's surname), and Penelope Aldaya, only daughter of the very rich Don Ricardo Aldaya and his beautiful and narcissistic American wife, developed an immediate love for each other for each other and lived in a clandestine relationship only through casual furtive glances and faint smiles for about four years, after which they decided to flee to Paris, unaware that the shadows of misfortune had been closing in on them since they had met. The two lovers are destined to an unknown fate only a week before their supposed escape, meticulously planned by Julian's best friend, Miquel Moliner, also the son of a rich father, who had earned a lot during the war, including a bad reputation for the sale of goods. ammunition. It is eventually revealed that Miquel loved Julian more than any of his brothers and ultimately sacrificed his own life for him, having already abandoned his desires and youth for charitable causes and his friend's well-being after his escape to Paris - albeit without Penelope, who never showed up for the appointment. The memory of Penelope continues to burn in Julian's heart, and this finally forces him to return to Barcelona (in the mid-1930s); however he comes across the harsh truth about Penelope, nothing more than a memory to those who knew her as she had never been seen or heard of by anyone after 1919. Daniel discovers, from the note Nuria Monfort left him, that Julian and Penelope they are actually half-brother and sister; his father had an affair with his mother and Julian was the result. The worst thing she learns is that after Julian left, Penelope's parents imprisoned her because they were ashamed that she had committed incest with him and she was pregnant with his child. Penelope gave birth to a son named David Aldaya, who was stillborn..