by Arturo Perez - Reverte (Author)
Perez-Reverte wrote the Captain Alatriste seies as a homage to the adventure books that had been his own initiation into the world of reading as a boy - books such as Dumas's The Three Musketeers. Captain Alatriste is a swordsman for hire in Spain in the 1620s - a time when Court intrigue was high and the decadent young king had dragged the country into a series of disastrous wars. As a hired 'blade', Alatriste becomes involved in many political plots and must live by his wits. He comes face to face with hired assassins, court players, political moles, smugglers, pirates and of course, the infamous Spanish Inquisition...All the stories are told by Inigo Balboa, Alatriste's young page. The cast of characters also includes Quevedo, an irrepressible subversive poet who likes to start fights in the local tavern, the kind-hearted innkeeper and ex-prostitute who shares Alatriste's bed, the elegant Count of Guadalmedina, the beautiful but deadly Angelica de Alquezar, and a whole host of underworld figures.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Published: 14 Jul 2005
ISBN 10: 0297848461
ISBN 13: 9780297848462
Book Overview: The Captain Alatriste books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide. This is the first time they will be available in English Major film already in production starring Viggo 'Aragorn' Mortensen. Like the Erast Fandorin books of Boris Akunin, this series has fantastic potential with a great central character Perez-Reverte's other novels (The Dumas Club, The Fencing Master etc) have all sold around 25,000 in this country but his Captain Alatriste books consistently outsell his other titles in Spain Swashbuckling adventure like The Three Musketeers Captain Alatriste is so popular he has his own website with games, a comic strip, and Alatriste's dictionary