Frank S. (colonelstech) reviewed on 8/19/2011 + 38 more book reviews

The Captain Alatriste swashbuckler series are "Perez-Reverte-lite"--much more straight-forward and visually graphic than his more complex, cerebral novels. This episode has Alatriste and Inigo, his faithful young 'aide de camp' back in the ranks of the Spanish infantry tercios, fighting the heretics in the Low Countries. Of the first four volumes in the series, this is the most action-packed, with combat on nearly every page, and Inigo growing from boy to man to soldier in each paragraph. Perez-Reverte makes a good case that the Spanish were the best infantry of their day (early 17th Century), despite their venile nobility and failing empire. As in all Perez-Reverte novels, we get provocative foreshadowing of adventures and mystries to come; in this case Inigo's ties to Valasquez and the ever-alluring, ever-deadly Angelia de Alquezar, whose letter to Inigo on the battlefields of Flanders, ends PS "I rejoice that you are still alive. I have plans for you." As does, we suspect, Perez-Reverte for his faithful readers.

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