Changes

|title=The Watcher in the Shadows

|sort=Watcher in the Shadows, The

|publisher=Orion Childrens

|date=May 2013

|summary=The third of Zafon's teen adventures, and a third classically-minded drama of hidden truths and mysterious arcana. Recommended, if not perfect.

}}

Good and bad luck combined have forced Irene and her family – mother Simone and insular younger brother Dorian – to live in the Normandy village of Blue Bay. It's a way to relieve the poverty her deceased father left them in, as Simone is now housekeeper to Lazarus Jann, a mysterious elderly businessman who lives in a mansion peopled by countless automata, and the isolated shell of what used to be his healthy wife. Irene herself has met the maid's brother, which the village network has immediately inflated into a long-term romance. Dorian is happy enough to be errand-boy for Jann's peculiar correspondence. So far, so interesting. But is there a dark secret to be had with the clockwork toys keeping Jann company? Is the tale of a ghost on the lighthouse islet true? And what else could be implied in the book's very title? In such a small village, for anyone to hold a secret it has to be very big, and very powerful…