Arturo Perez Books In Order

Captain Alatriste

The first in a magnificent series of historical novels from the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Club Dumas and The Queen of the South. Captain Alatriste is the story of a fictional seventeenth century Spanish soldier who, after being wounded in battle during the Thirty Years’ War, is forced to retire from the army. Now he lives the comparatively tame though hardly quiet life of a swordsman for hire in Madrid. Approached with an offer of work, Alatriste is told to go with another hired blade to an unfamiliar part of the city at midnight and wait. They are received by men who explain that they want Alatriste and his companion to ambush two travelers the following evening, stage a robbery, and give the men a fright. ‘No blood,’ they are told. But then a third figure enters the room. He says the job requires some clarification: he increases the pay, and tells them that, instead, they must murder the two travelers. Then he reveals his identity: Emilio Bocanegra. It is a name synonymous with the Spanish Inquisition, the bloodiest name in Europe. This is a man whose requests cannot be denied. But the following night, with the attack imminent, it becomes clear to Alatriste that these aren’t ordinary travelers. And what happens next is only the first in a series of riveting twists and turns, with implications that will reverberate throughout the courts of Europe. For anyone who loves the work of Arturo Pirez Reverte and those who have not yet discovered the delights of this extraordinary writer Captain Alatriste is one of the most stylish, singular pleasures to come along in years.

Purity of Blood

Arturo Perez Reverte is one of the most beloved writers in the world. His bestselling novels, including The Club Dumas and The Queen of the South, have been published in fifty countries and translated into twenty eight languages. Now, with The Adventures of Captain Alatriste, he delivers a magnificent series, already a million copy bestseller in Spain, that chronicles the heroic adventures of a seventeenth century swordsman.

In Purity of Blood, the second novel in the series, the courageous Alatriste is considering rejoining his old regiment to fight in Breda but his blade leads him to another adventure. A desperate father hires him to rescue his daughter from a convent where a powerful priest is said to be using the girl as his personal concubine. The father has been prevented from legal recourse because the priest has threatened to reveal that the man’s family is ‘not of pure blood’ is, in fact, of Jewish descent which will all but destroy the family name. Alatriste agrees to help, and several nights later, under the cloak of darkness, a rescue attempt is made.

But soon Alatriste discovers that he has become part of a religious and political conspiracy that leads all the way to the highest levels of the Inquisition. When a date is set to burn the man’s daughter at the stake, Captain Alatriste springs into action sword first setting off a series of twists and turns that will keep readers riveted to the page.

Translation by Margaret Sayers Peden

The Sun Over Breda

Arturo P rez Reverte has enthralled readers and critics around the globe with his Captain Alatriste series. Having sold four and a half million copies to date in the Spanish speaking world, the series has made P rez Reverte a literary superstar and his fictional seventeenth century mercenary a national icon. And the appeal of P rez Reverte’s adventurer and his exploits continues to grow, as evidenced by the extraordinary reception for the first two translated volumes in the series Captain Alatriste and Purity of Blood.

And now, in The Sun Over Breda, P rez Reverte continues his thrilling chronicle of the swordsman for hire, as Captain Alatriste takes up his blade and rejoins his elite Cartagena regiment as they take part in the battles and siege of Breda. Fifteen year old igo Balboa enlists to serve as his master’s aide, and narrates their further adventures of swordplay and skirmishes, of mutiny and wartime honor. And, back in Spain, Alatriste’s nemesis Luis de Alqu zar grows more powerful, as igo’s mysterious friend Ang lica hints at some plans upon his return

The King’s Gold

From acclaimed and bestselling author Arturo P rez Reverte comes the fourth adventure of Captain Alatriste, the brooding, charismatic hero of his wildly successful Spanish swashbuckling novels The New York Times. Arturo P rez Reverte has enthralled readers and critics around the globe with his Captain Alatriste series. Having sold four and a half million copies to date in the Spanish speaking world, the series has made P rez Reverte a literary superstar and his fictional seventeenth century mercenary a national icon. The King’s Gold picks up in Seville, 1626. After serving with honor at the bloody siege of Breda, Captain Alatriste and his prot g , Inigo Balboa, have returned: battle weary, short of cash, and with few prospects for honest work. But the Spanish empire is as dangerous as ever, and it s not long before Alatriste receives an intriguing offer of short term employment. He and Inigo must recruit a dozen swordsmen and mercenaries for a risky job involving a dazzling amount of contraband gold and a heavily guarded Spanish galleon returning from the West Indies. The offer comes from the king himself, for at stake is nothing less than the Spanish Crown, and its dominion over the wealth of the Americas. The seedy taverns, the teeming prisons of Seville, the sand dunes of Guadalquivir find Alatriste, Inigo, and their motley band of cutthroats embarking on a new adventure, one that brings them surprising new alliances and perilous encounters with old enemies.

The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

From the acclaimed and bestselling author comes the fifth adventure of Captain Alatriste, ‘the brooding, charismatic hero of his wildly successful Spanish swashbuckling novels’ The New York Times. In the cosmopolitan world of seventeenth century Madrid, with its posh theaters and gleaming palaces, Captain Alatriste and his prot g , igo, are fish out of water. But the king and court are keeping Alatriste on retainer he has proved useful in the past. As a veteran with no other source of income, Alatriste chooses to remain, even as his ’employment’ brings him uncomfortably close to old enemies. igo, now a young man and veteran of the Hundred Years War, chooses to remain with his master and press his ill fated romance with the beautiful but sinister Ang lica de Alqu zar. Alatriste, for his part, begins an affair with the famous and famously beautiful actress Mar a de Castro, and discovers that the competition for her favors may be much more dangerous than he’d bargained for, especially when Alatriste and igo become unwilling participants in a court conspiracy that could lead them both to the gallows.

Pirates of the Levant

This was a time when Spain was revered, feared, and hated in the easterly seas; when the devil had no color, no name, and no flag; and when the only thing needed to summon hell on earth or sea was a Spaniard and his sword. Accompanied by his faithful foster son, igo, Captain Alatriste accepts a job as a mercenary aboard a Spanish galleon. The ship sets sail from Naples on a journey that will take them to some of the most remote and wretched outposts of the empire: Morocco, Algeria, and finally to Malta for a stunning and bloody battle on the high seas that will challenge even the battle hardened Alatriste’s resolve. Now seventeen, igo is almost ready to leave Alatriste, his foster father and fellow soldier. But will age and experience bring wisdom, or is he likely to repeat many of his mentor’s mistakes?

The Club Dumas

‘A cross between Umberto Eco and Anne Rice…
. Think of ‘The Club Dumas‘ as a beach book for intellectuals.’ ‘ New York Daily News’ Lucas Corso, middle aged, tired, and cynical, is a book detective, a mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well known bibliophile is found hanged, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas’s ‘The Three Musketeers, ‘ Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. The task seems straightforward, but the unsuspecting Corso is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas’s masterpiece. Aided by a mysterious beauty named for a Conan Doyle hero*ine, Corso travels from Madrid to Toledo to Paris in pursuit of a sinister and seemingly omniscient killer. Part mystery, part puzzle, part witty intertextual game, ‘The Club Dumas‘ is a wholly original intellectual thriller by the internationally bestselling author of ‘The Flanders Panel’ and ‘The Seville Communion.’

The Flanders Panel

Julia is a young art expert in Madrid. Her specialty is the restoration of paintings about to go up for auction. But her latest project could also be her last. A fifteenth century masterpiece, the painting depicts a chess game between the Duke of Flanders and his knight, as a lady in black velvet sits in the background. What makes this project different is the hidden inscription Julia discovers in the corner: Quis Necavit Equitem. Translation: Who killed the knight? Breaking the silence of five centuries, Julia’s hunt for a Renaissance murderer leads her into a modern day game of sin, betrayal, and death every move calculated with devilish precision. And as the stakes rise, Julia finds herself exposed and vulnerable to attack from everywhere. Unsure whether she is a player or just a pawn, all she knows for certain is that her passion for art has made her an object of deadly obsession. In a mystery of eloquence, wit, seduction, and suspense which marks the debut of a writer Europeans are already comparing to Umberto Eco, the solution is a tour de force of intrigue.

The Seville Communion

A hacker gains entry to the Pope’s personal computer, leaving a warning about the threatened demolition of a small church in Seville where two people have already died in mysterious circumstances. Arturo Perez Reverte is the author of ‘The Flanders Panel’ and ‘The Dumas Club’. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Spain’s Arturo Perez Reverte continues his string of comfortably old fashioned, modestly intellectual thrillers with a touching and suspenseful story of faith and duty, set in the timeless and enchanting city of Seville. ‘In Seville different histories were superimposed and interdependent,’ he writes, aided by Sonia Soto’s seamless translation. ‘A rosary stringing together time, blood and prayers in different languages beneath a blue sky and wise sun that leveled everything over the centuries. Stone survivors that could still be heard. You just had to forget for a moment the camcorders, postcards, coaches full of tourists and cheeky young girls, and put your ear to the stones and listen.’ As in his previous surprise bestsellers The Club Dumas and The Flanders Panel, both available in paperback Perez Reverte takes a supposedly cool observer and turns the person into a hot blooded participant in the action. In The Seville Communion it’s Father Lorenzo Quart, who works for an investigative branch of the Vatican that is referred to by an angry, upstaged Archbishop of Seville as ‘you and your mafiosi in Rome, playing God’s police.’ Father Quart, a very attractive man with prematurely gray hair cropped short, wears expensive suits and has to fight off the women who test his vows of celibacy. His toughest challenge is a breathtaking, titled beauty named Macarena, whose banker husband is at the center of a plot to tear down a historic church. Two people have already been killed because of the intrigue, and more violence threatens as Father Quart is pursued by a trio of ineptly dangerous villains, straight out of Bogart’s Beat the Devil, through the gorgeous streets of a city to die for.

The Fencing Master

In Madrid, in 1868, Don Jaime, fencing master and anachronistic man of honor, is working on his Treatise on the Art of Fencing. One day he is approached by a mysterious woman who seeks to learn the secret of ‘the unstoppable thrust,’ a supreme moment at the very heart of the art of fencing. All too soon he finds himself in the vortex of a plot that includes seduction, secret political documents, and more than one murder. Rich in historical detail of a decaying world that agonizes as does fencing itself over the ideals of honor and chivalry, The Fencing Master is superb literature and a true page turner.

The Nautical Chart

Coy is a suspended sailor with time on his hands, a mariner without a ship. While attending a maritime auction in Barcelona, he meets a beautiful woman who immediately captures his imagination. T nger Soto, who works for the Naval Museum in Madrid, is obsessed with the Dei Gloria, a Jesuit ship sunk by pirates in the seventeenth century, and now she hopes resting on the bottom of the sea off the southern coast of Spain. T nger uses her considerable manipulative skills with men and her expertise with documents, atlases, and nautical maps to chart the search for lost treasure. Coy is quickly drawn into the search, and before long finds himself falling in love. Along with El Piloto, the world wise old man of the sea whose sailboat will carry this adventurous crew, they seek their fortune together. Or do they?As these lively characters follow the course of past sailors, their own journey becomes perilous. Are there secrets dwelling in the depths of the sea? And what of the depths of the heart? This highly intelligent and meticulously plotted novel combines the richness of atmosphere we have come to expect from P rez Reverte with the romance and mystery of the sea found in the novels of Melville, Conrad, and O’Brian. An unforgettable adventure.’The master of the intellectual thriller.’ San Francisco Chronicle

Queen of the South

The critically acclaimed, beloved, and bestselling author of The Club Dumas and The Nautical Chart delivers his most magni cent novel to date. Few authors inspire the kind of passion that Arturo P rez Reverte does. Reviewers, readers, and booksellers alike have embraced his fiction as the perfect blend of suspense and literary ambition. A global bestseller, he is one of the most admired and widely read authors in the world. And his stunning new novel is his best yet. A remarkable tale, The Queen of the South spans continents, from the dusty streets of Mexico to the sparkling waters off the coast of Morocco, to Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar. A sweeping story set to the irresistible beat of the drug smugglers’ ballads, it encompas*ses sensuality and cruelty, love and betrayal, as its hero*ine’s story unfolds. Teresa Mendoza’s boyfriend is a drug smuggler who the narcos of Sinaloa, Mexico, call ‘the king of the short runway,’ because he can get a plane full of coke off the ground in three hundred yards. But in a ruthless business, life can be short, and Teresa even has a special cell phone that Guero gave her along with a dark warning. If that phone rings, it means he’s dead, and she’d better run, because they’re coming for her next. Then the call comes. In order to survive, she will have to say goodbye to the old Teresa, an innocent girl who once entrusted her life to a pinche narco smuggler. She will have to find inside herself a woman who is tough enough to inhabit a world as ugly and dangerous as that of the narcos a woman she never before knew existed. Indeed, the woman who emerges will surprise even those who know her legend, that of the Queen of the South.

The Painter of Battles

Acclaimed author Arturo P rez Reverte has earned a distinguished reputation as a master of the literary thriller with his international bestsellers The Club Dumas and The Queen of the South. Now, in this haunting new work, P rez Reverte has written his most accomplished novel to date. The Painter of Battles is a captivating tale of love, war, art, and revenge.

Andr’s Faulques, a world renowned war photographer, has retired to a life of solitude on the Spanish coast. On the walls of a tower overlooking the sea, he spends his days painting a huge mural that pays homage to history s classic works of war art and that incorporates a lifetime of disturbing images.
One night, an unexpected visitor arrives at Faulques door and challenges the painter to remember him. As Faulques struggles to recall the face, the man explains that he was the subject of an iconic photo taken by Faulques in a war zone years ago. And why have you come looking for me? asks Faulques. The stranger answers, Because I m going to kill you.

This story transports Faulques to the time when he crossed continents to capture conflicts on film with his lover, Olvido, at his side. Until she walked into his life, Faulques muses, he had believed he would survive both war and women.

As the tense dialogue between Faulques and his visitor continues, the stakes grow ever higher. What they are grappling with quickly proves to be not just Faulques fate but the very nature of human love and cruelty itself.

Arturo P rez Reverte perfectly balances the shadows of the heart with the chaos of war in this stunning composition on morality. Superb and tautly written, The Painter of Battles is a deeply affecting novel about life and art.