These mysteries take a bit of unpacking and don't always make as much sense as they could. Where did the statues come from in a nearby, mist-shrouded garden? What secrets are hidden in the home movies Max's father finds in the basement, movies that seem to have been filmed by the young Jacob? What really causes the terrible accident that threatens Irina's life? And who is the malevolent Prince of Mist who seems to be calling from beyond the grave? Roland also flirts with Alicia, and they fall in love in a single afternoon, as you do.īut strange things begin to happen. He teaches Max how to dive out to the wreck of a ship just offshore, which sank in mysterious circumstances. When the Carvers arrive it is summertime, and Max meets Roland, the teenage grandson of the town's lighthouse-keeper.

It turns out that it used to be owned by a Dr Fleischmann and his wife, who moved out when their seven-year-old son Jacob drowned a decade earlier.

Max and his two sisters, the elder, Alicia and Irina, the younger, find the new house covered in dust. Which city and which seafront are left rather maddeningly vague, though it does finally seem clear that they are London and somewhere on the Channel. It's 1943, and to get away from the city during the war, Maximilian unexpectedly buys a seafront house and moves the family there. Thirteen-year-old Max Carver is the son of eccentric watchmaker Maximilian.

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón