by Arturo Perez - Reverte (Author)
A woman has been found in a sedan chair in front of a church, strangled. In her hand is a pouch containing fifty escudos and a handwritten - but unsigned - note bearing the words 'For masses for her soul'. The chief constable Martin Saldana confides in his old friend and comrade in arms, Diego Alatriste. Still in danger from the powerful enemies he made in his first adventure, Captain Alatriste is considering returning to Flanders where the war has just resumed. But first, his old friend Quevedo asks him for a favour. The daughter of one of his friends must be rescued from a convent, which certain 'priests' seem to be treating as little more than a harem. Then the woman who brought the girl to the convent goes missing and the connection is made to the murder at the church. It seems that Alatriste's sword is required once more.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: W&N
Published: 11 Jan 2006
ISBN 10: 0297848631
ISBN 13: 9780297848639
Book Overview: 2006 is the year the major film starring Viggo 'Aragorn' Mortensen will be released. The Captain Alatriste books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide - the first in the series has sold over 17,000 copies already Captain Alatriste is so popular he has his own website with games, a comic strip, and Alatriste's dictionary 'A thinking man's adventure novel, where sword fights and tales of derring-do are interwoven with wonderful passages of poetry and gems of historical and cultural information' The Times 'Our hero is an ex-soldier [who] has a certain fatalistic melancholy, as well as a voracious reading habit. Wolfish grey eyes, battle scars, a warrior's code of honour and irreproachable gallantry complete the outfit...Perez-Reverte is a huge admirer of Alexandre Dumas; here, like his hero, has produced a very high-class entertainment' Guardian 'Perez-Reverte is very good at evoking the atmosphere of a teeming, corrupt and jaded Madrid, unhappily enduring the reign of Phillip the Fourth in the last decades of Spain's imperial glory. He is superb at the precisely choreographed sword fights' Daily Telegraph