Captain Alatriste has a new love in his life—the beautiful actress Maria de Castro.   However, there is a problem since he already lives with his other lover, and an even bigger problem since Maria herself has both a husband and another lover.  This other lover is none other than the King of Spain himself, Philip IV.  During a fight outside Maria’s house somebody gets killed... surely it cannot be the king?  Rumors fly around that the dashing captain has gone too far this time, but suppose it wasn’t the king and suppose too that somebody did want the real king dead...

If you think swashbuckling fiction cannot have its literary, quality side then you have not been reading these novels.  You may open the first one thinking you are going to get an old-fashioned adventure story but then discover that these are real people with very real concerns.  Pérez-Reverte has created a series about what Spain was really like back then in all its fading glory, from bloody battlefields to courtly poetry, seedy Madrid backstreets and perfumed gardens.  These novels are laced throughout with the real poetry and witticisms of the fictitious Alatriste’s historical friends, people like de Queveda, Calderon and Lope, the narrator Iñigo’s asides about past, present and future and of course plenty of action.   It is easy to see why they appeal to so many people; I hope this series runs and runs.