Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'Cementery of Forgotten Books', a labyrinthine library of obscure titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, one cold morning in 1945, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the selves and pulls out The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. Captivated by the novel from its very first page, Daniel reads the book in one sitting. But he is not the only one interesed in Carax. As he grows up in a Barcelona still suffering the aftershocks of civil war, Daniel is haunted by the story of the author, a man who seems to have disappeared without a trace after a duel in Père Lachaise cemetery. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julián Carax, and to save those he left behind.