A compelling tale of art, love and war... A man lives alone in a watchtower by the sea. On the circular walls of the tower he is painting a grand mural - the timeless landscape of a battle. He is a former war photographer, and the painting is his attempt to capture the photo he was never able to take; to encapsulate, in an instant, the meaning of war. But one day a stranger knocks on his door and announces that he has come to kill him. The man is a shadow from his past, one of the myriad faces of war, and now the consequences of his actions are brought home to him. As the novel progresses, the story of both the soldier and the artist emerge, entwined with a doomed love affair, and the progress of a painting that is infused with the history of art. Intense and turbulent this is a book about art, war, love and the human capacity for both violence and empathy. It asks very profound questions about human nature and the role of the artist, but it is also has the intensity of a psychological thriller as the painter trades stories with the man who has come to kill him - like the Knight playing chess with Death in the Seventh Seal....

A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned when Julia, a young art restorer, discovers a peculiar inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight? In the painting, the Duke of Flanders and his knight are locked in a game of chess, and a dark lady lurks mysteriously in the background. Julia is determined to solve the five-hundred-year-old murder, but as she begins to look for clues, several of her friends in the art world are brutally murdered in quick succession. Messages left with the bodies suggest a crucial connection between the chess game in the painting, the knight's murder, the sordid underside of the contemporary art world, and the latest deaths. Just when all of the players in the mystery seem to be pawns themselves, events race toward a shocking conclusion. A thriller like no other, The Flanders Panel presents a tantalizing puzzle for any connoisseur of mystery, chess, art, and history.

Captain Alatriste's latest adventure - a story of skirmishes, privateers, boarded ships, swords and sackings. 'This was a time where Spain was revered, feared and hated in the easterly seas; where the devil had no colour, no name and no flag, and where the only thing needed to summon hell on earth (or sea for that matter) was a Spaniard and his sword' Alatriste is back - this time on the high seas! Accompanied by his faithful companion Inigo, the captain joins a Spanish galleon and sets sail from Naples towards the east on a journey that will take them to Melilla, Oran, and finally Malta where they must struggle against the Turk. On board they will have many adventures, including an encounter with The Moor Gurriato. Now seventeen, Inigo is still in love with Angelica but will wisdom come with age and experience?

A thrilling,swashbuckling adventure series starring the Spanish D'Artagnan Captain Alatriste is a swordsman for hire in Spain at a timewhen Court intrigue is high and the decadent young king has dragged the countryinto a series of disastrous wars. As a hired blade, Alatriste becomes involvedin many political plots and must live by his wits. He comes face to face withhired assassins, court players, political moles, smugglers, pirates and ofcourse, the infamous Spanish Inquisition... I ntroducing Inigo Balboa, Alatriste's young page; Quevedo, asubversive poet who likes to start fights in the local tavern, the elegantCount of Guadalmedina, and the beautiful but deadly Angelica de Alquezar,CAPTAIN ALATRISTE is a thrilling tale of adventure and intrigue that will appealto anyone who enjoyed The Three Musketeers.

In this fourth instalment, Captain Alatriste becomes involved in a mission to save the King of Spain's gold... Swashbuckling adventure and high octane action. The year is 1626, and a battle-weary Captain Alatriste and his companions sail home from the on-going war in Flanders. He returns to a Spain that is rotten to the core, as gold from the Americas floods into the port of Seville, brought by the country's infamous treasure fleet. As various factions within the Court vie for supremacy, certain interests are creaming off undeclared profits from the galleons' cargo, thus depriving the royal treasury of its lifeblood. Indeed some of the booty is finding its way into the hands of the same rebel provinces Spain is fighting to suppress. The King and his most trusted advisor, the Count-Duke Olivares, have become aware of one such plot and have decided to teach the perpetrator a lesson. Once more, they must call upon Captain Alatriste's blade in a dangerous adventure that will bring the captain face to face with his nemesis, and with a ruthless man who has designs on the throne...

When a well-known bibliophile is found hanged, Lucas Corso is brought in to authenticate a fragment of a manuscript purported to be "The Three Musketeers." He is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and a swashbuckling cast that bears a suspicious resemblance to those in the famous work.

Captain Alatriste returns in a swashbuckling tale of intrigue, romance and regicide. Captain Alatriste's affair with the beautiful actress Maria de Castro is rankling not only his long-term mistress but also the King of Spain. With loyal companion Inigo distracted by the affections of Angelica, Alatriste becomes embroiled in a series of tussles outside his lover's house. Ambushed by arch-nemesis Malatesta, a skirmish ensues that leads to the death of Maria's other lover - the monarch himself. But behind this tale of sexual jealousy lurks a darker truth. As it becomes clear that both Alatriste and Inigo have been cunningly honey trapped - and that the dead man was an impostor. With a puppet king waiting dutifully in the wings, Alatriste must use all his cunning and swordsmanly guile to prevent the murder of the real king - and his implication in a crime for which he has been perfectly framed.

The third in the bestselling Captain Alatriste series. Flanders, 1625. After his tussles with the Inquisition and the intrigue of the Spanish court, Captain Alatriste has returned to the mud and desperation of the long war in Flanders. This is Inigo's first experience of war and the realities of hand to hand combat. It is on the battlefield that he will finally have the chance to become a man and prove his worth. The troops are weary and ill-nourished and the winter has been long. As Spain sinks ever further into depravity and corruption, the soldiers have not been paid and must survive by whatever ways they can. Mutiny is in the air, but the Spaniards are strong and their famous iron discipline has brought them many victories against the Calvinist forces of the heretics. Reputation, honour, and the glory of Spain will keep them in the fight, but for how long? Meanwhile, the Captain's trusted friend Quevedo's star is rising at court and he keeps Alatriste appraised of the machinations of his arch-enemy Luis de Alquezar and the notorious assassin with the black heart, Gualterio Malatesta.

WINNER OF THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER 2014 Cadiz, 1811. While the city is under siege from the marauding French army, an even greater menace is lurking within the city walls: a serial killer is on the loose, flaying young women to death. Each of these murders takes place near where a French bomb has just fallen. In order to find the murderer, police commissioner Rogelio Tizon begins to perceive the city as a vast chessboard as he tries to predict his unknown opponent's next deadly move. In the claustrophobic atmosphere of the besieged town, an heiress, an unscrupulous corsair captain, a taxidermist who is also a spy and a hardened soldier begin to cross paths, and behind them all the figure of Tizon is getting closer to deciphering the lethal pattern behind the murders... With all the intrigue and romance of Perez-Reverte's bestsellers, THE DUMAS CLUB and THE FLANDERS PANEL, THE SIEGE is the story of a city and a people who will never be the same again.

The second 'Captain Alatriste' novel, from a series which has sold 4 million copies worldwide 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.

A woman has been found strangled in front of a local church. On her lap, a bag full of coins and a note "For masses for her soul." In a nearby convent for young society ladies, the chaplain is having "unconventional" encounters with his novices. Capitan Alatriste will soon discover how these two facts are connected by an entangled net of power, faith, and death.

Spanning continents and decades and encompassing sensuality, cruelty, treachery and corruption, this is Perez-Reverte's most remarkable novel to date Guero Davila is a pilot engaged in drug-smuggling for the local cartels. Teresa Mendoza is his girlfriend, a typical narco's morra, quiet, doting, submissive. But then Guero's caught playing both sides and in Sinaloa that means death. Teresa is alone, terrified, friendless and running to save her life, carrying nothing but a gym bag containing a pistol and a notebook that she has been forbidden to read. Forced to leave Mexico, she flees to the Spanish city of Melilla where she meets Santiago Fisterra, a Galician involved in trafficking hashhish across the Strait of Gibraltar. When Santiago's partner is captured, it is Teresa who steps in to take his place. Now Teresa has plunged into the dark and ugly world that once claimed Guero's life - and she's about to get in deeper...

Discover the new adventures of Diego Alatriste and his young partner, Iniigo Balboa, in the long-awaited fifth installment of the famous adventures of Capitan Alatriste. Madrid, 1626, this new story is set in the middle of an aristocratic love affair between Alatriste and Maria de Castro, the most beautiful and famous actress of the Golden Era; a woman who is also being courted by Felipe IV. Action, history and adventure come together like a whirlpool in these unforgettable pages of dangerous and exciting adventures.

This story takes us to the Madrid of Lope de Vega, of Calderon de la Barca and of Tirso de Molina, to the filthy alleys, royal conspiracies, and all the intrigues that brew in the theaters of the XVII century. Between Madrid and El Escorial we witness these new adventures, full of passion, vengeance and dangers, all through the eyes and narration of the always-faithful nigo Balboa.

Enlisted as aide of Capitan Alatriste in the Spanish regiments, Inigo de Balboa tries to survive in a world where he needs to get very close to his enemy in order to kill him with his sword. He witnesses a historic moment, the surrender of Breda, that he would retell later to his friend Diego Velazquez, who depicts the events in a now-famous painting.

Murderous goings-on in a tiny baroque church draw the Vatican into the dark heart of Seville. A hacker gets into the Pope's personal computer to leave a warning about mysterious deaths in a small church in Seville that is threatened with demolition. Father Quart, a suave Vatican trouble-shooter, is sent to investigate. Experience has taught him to deal with enemies of the Church in all their guises, but nothing has prepared him for the stubborn faith of Father Ferro, or the appeal of the lovely Macarena Bruner, desperate to save the church of her ancestors from her ex-husband, the ruthless banker Pencho Gavira. As Quart is drawn into an intrigue as labyrinthine as the streets of Seville, soon more than his vocation is in danger.

In the world of rare books everything has its price. But when the book is a satanic tract, the currency is not money but life. A well-know bibliophile is found hanged days after selling a rare manuscript of Alexander Dumas's classic, The Three Musketeers. Across Madrid, Spain's wealthiest book dealer has finally laid his hands on a 17th-century manual for summoning the devil. Lucas Corso, solitary and obsessive, is the detective hired to authenticate both texts. But the further he follows the trail of devil worship, the more it leads him back to Dumas. He's the unwitting protagonist in someone's evil plot, but is he sleuth or hero, Sherlock Holmes or d'Artagnan?