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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A return to more swashbuckling form, 7 Jan 2009
After the disappointment of The Sun Over Breda I had a degree of trepidation in picking this latest volume of Perez-Reverte's series. The Sun Over Breda had seemed a disconnected set of events, not bound together by any real story. This, I'm pleased to report, is a much more coherent novel.
Perhaps it is helped by the fact that story has returned to Spain from the wars of the Low Countries - the setting this time is Seville. Seville was one of the great cities of Spain and also, perhaps, its most flamboyant. This was due to the fact that great treasure fleets from the New World all brought their cargos to dock there. Enormous wealth flowed through the port. This is the hook on which Perez-Reverte hangs his tale.
The plot is fairly slight - Alatriste is hired to provide muscle for a secret scheme - but there is plenty to enjoy here. There are swordfights at night, constables to be avoided, old enemies to be confronted and personal honour to be upheld. And through it all there is a strong thematic link in the form of the gold brought to the city - its power to corrupt, to change men and buy loyalty.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Reverte resorts to formula, 8 Jun 2008
For English speakers this will be the fourth publication to feature the character of Captain Alatriste, and this novel follows swiftly on from the events contained in 'The Sun over Breda'.
For those familiar with the earlier adventures there will be little new here, and this indeed is one of the great flaws in this book. The characterisation is not developed further to any great extent, and the encounters between Alatriste and Gualterio Malatesta echo quite clealry the parallel pacing of Inigo's dealings with Angelica de Alquezar. This results in a pedestrian plot that ultimately feels episodic, restrained and predictable, lacking any sense of danger or frisson of excitement despite the necessarily violent encounters involving the main characters. This is particularly troubling as there is no corresponding pyschological exploration to detract the readers attention.
You might be tempted to ask if this matters? Surely, some might argue, these novels belong clearly to a tradition of storytelling dedicated to the celebration of male escapism and heroism, as exemplified by the similarly placed historical novels of Dumas and, most notably, the adventures of D'Artangnan and his fellow Muskateers. My response is that it has to matter, despite the similarly episodic nature of 'The Three Muskateers' there is a sense of engagement with the characters, which naturally leads the reader to want to know what happens next - despite the fact that he or she could possibly quite accurately predict the events of the next chapter.
This is singularly lacking in this story, despite the fact that the parallels betwen the work of Dumas and Perez-Reverte are consciously invited by the author (deliberately since the involvement of the Duke of Buckingham in the first novel of this series). Furthermore the conception of the work of Dumas is on a far grander scale, Dumas is quite happy to distort and bend 'history' to suit the demands of his narrative, whilst one senses that Perez-Reverte is failing to take advantage of the manifest opportunities offerred by Spain and the world in the early 17th Century. This is especially frustrating given the fact that the Alatriste series was deliberately conceived to develop and exploit the material from this period within a knowing and culturally nuanced fiction.
It is difficult to predict if this lack of ambition and execution is peculiar to this novel in the series, it will be necessary to wait until Weidenfield and Nicolson (W&N) publish the next installment (despite the apparent popularity of this series W&N appear loathe to make them more readily and speedily available). A further concern relates to the dust cover which accompanies this particular edition, which is entirely out of keeping with the previous hardback editions. This may well be part of an intention to raise awareness of the series through a visual tie-in with the film which has recently been made starring Viggo Mortensen.
In conclusion, this is a disappointing addition to the Alatriste series, which is all the more so as Perez Reverte is clearly capable of so much more.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
In The Footsteps of Dumas, Henty and Sabatini., 15 May 2008
This fourth volume in the Adventures of Captain Alatriste is set in the port city of Sevilla. The annual treasure fleet is about to arrive and a powerful clique in the King's inner circle is prepared to siphon off royal treasure for their own nefarious purposes. Another powerful group of nobles want to make sure their corrupt plan fails. This being Spain in its decadent Golden Age, hired blades will be needed. Who better to recruit and lead a party of of mercenary swordsmen recruited from Sevilla's criminal underclass than the redoubtable Captain Alatriste and his loyal side kick Inigo Balboa?
For those of us who love the swashbuckling genre of literature, we are fortunate that Arturo Perez Reverte is producing what will be the nine volume Adventure of Captain Alatriste series. Perez Reverte is a fine novelist producing serious books that are world wide best sellers. In between more serious novels, he finds the time to crank out further Alatriste adventures. Each volume of the series is well written and filled with wonderful historical details from Spain's Golden Age.
I love the series and will eventually read all nine novels. However, the problem with the series is that each novel is essentially eposodic in nature. There is a lack of an overarching story in each novel. One will have to read all nine novels to learn how the story turns out. I wish that Perez Reverte had sat down like Alexandre Dumas and wrote one really long novel that told this story. Perez Reverte will do in nine novels what Dumas did in one novel.
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