Buried treasure tale.
Brilliantly plotted tale of the sea, past and present. You'll appreciate it most if you will be able to catch the allusions to Homer, Melville, Conrad, Stevenson and other authors who wove stories of the lure of the oceans. The writing is both precise and sensual, sometimes almost unbearably gorgeous, and the characters are both specific and archetypal. This is the best of three novels by Perez-Reverte that I've read so far, and I have two more lined up. Highly recommended!
Excellent! Descriptive, enticing mystery with great character.
This is the first Perez-Reverte book I read and still my favorite. For comparison, I also bought the South American Spanish edition. That has more descriptive detail. This good translation does not suffer for being shorter. The translator captured the beautiful mood and language. Brings back lovely memories of Madrid. Barcelona in the book is nicer than the Barcelona I remember.
This is a great historic story about sailing, Spain and some extremely interesting characters.
Perez-Reverte is one of my favorite authors, and this is not one of the best of his novels, but then, it isn't too bad either. While engaging and colorful, with some good characters (the dwarf Argentine commando is particularly well-drawn), it tries too overtly to be too many things, mostly hard-boiled adventure stories and films; hard guys and delicious dames in deadly search of fabulous treasure: The Maltese Falcon, The Deep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Beat the Devil, The Odyssey, TinTin's Adventures, The Da Vinci Code ... Great stuff that Perez-Reverte chops, dices, and sautes into a pretty good bouillabaisse of a sea-story.
Very good - an intriguing treasure hunt with unique characters.
