Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2005. 253 pp., $23.95

We are being inundated of late by a certain category of historical novel wherein a familiar story is told from the point of view of a different character – Ahab’s wife and the boy who loved Anne Frank are two that immediately spring to mind. But a decade ago, before he became an international publishing celebrity with his (deservedly) best-selling The Club Dumas, one of the finest practitioners of this genre, the Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte, invented a compelling character in the first of a series just now being launched in the US.

This mysterious, swashbuckling inhabitant of seventeenth-century Madrid – in a complex and intriguing time after the defeat of the Spanish Armada and during the Thirty Years’ War -- is Captain Diego Alatriste. In true Perez-Reverte fashion, the multi-layered story is narrated by yet another invented character, this time a lad named Inigo. His father was killed in the War and so Inigo has been taken under Alatriste’s wing as his aide and, as a consequence, is eyewitness to his exploits – recounted with sophistication many years later. Thus we are given a documentary picture of the period populated with many real historical characters parading in and out of the imagined plot.

The result is a vivid combination of detective story, romance, and cultural tapestry. We follow the thread of Alatriste’s bloody escapades as a hired "have sword, will travel" with a guilty conscience, and along the way we meet the poet don Francisco de Quevedo on one page, and on the next page are introduced to the golden-tressed young girl who would become the centerpiece of the painter Velazquez’ monumental portrait, Las Meninas.

The intrigue at the core concerns Alatriste attempting to complete a dangerous mission one night on the dark, cobblestoned streets of Madrid, where he is to be well-paid in gold for ambushing two anonymous foreign visitors. However, the assignment becomes corrupted by a mysterious envoy from the Church who wants Alatriste and his Italian accomplice to take the matter one step further. Don’t expect more detail from me as to the identity of the two visitors. When I came upon the paragraph in which this striking fact was revealed, I exclaimed aloud, and you will too, I promise.

Like me, I assume you will open this book knowing nothing about the subtleties of swordsmanship in seventeenth-century Spain, and the various types of weapons concealed beneath the soldier’s flowing cloak and at other unexpected locations of his person. Like me, you may, however, possess a smattering of knowledge about Spanish culture during its so-called Golden Age, a time of rich and opulent art, flowering poetry, diplomatic duplicity, and elaborate etiquette governing social promenading on Sundays in the central plaza.

All these elements are blended with Perez-Reverte’s exquisite style and respect for period detail into an unusual novel indeed. Four more in the Alatriste series will be published in America over the next four years – something to look forward to!

– Neil Baldwin’s new book, The American Revelation, is in bookstores now. It is reviewed in today's Washington Post book section.

June 12, 2005 in Good Reads by Neil Baldwin | Permalink