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Splendidly paced and filled with a breathtaking but not overwhelming sense of history. Historical Fiction

From the book jacket: The first in a magnificent series of historical novels from the 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.

Comment: Arturo Perez-Reverte was born in Cartagena, Spain and lives near Madrid. Originally a war correspondent, he now writes full-time. His novels include The Flanders Panel, The Club Dumas, The Fencing Master, The Seville Communion, The Nautical Chart and The Queen of the South. Captain Alatriste is the first in a series of 5 stories first published in Spain between 1996 and 1999 but now available in English for the first time. They are considered to be relatively light reads, compared with his stand-alone novels.

'Splendidly paced and filled with a breathtaking but not overwhelming sense of the history and spirit of the age, this is popular entertainment at its best: the characters have weight and depth, the dialogue illuminates the action as it furthers the story and the film-worthy plot is believable throughout.' - Publishers Weekly.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in June 2005, and has been updated for the January 2006 edition. Click here to go to this issue.

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