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Arturo Pérez-Reverte is one of the most
beloved writers in the world. His bestselling novels, including
The Club Dumas and The Queen of the South,
have been published in fifty countries and translated into
twenty-eight languages. Now, with The Adventures of Captain
Alatriste, he delivers a magnificent series, already
a million-copy bestseller in Spain, that chronicles the heroic
adventures of a seventeenth-century swordsman.
In Purity of Blood, the second
novel in the series, the courageous Alatriste is considering
rejoining his old regiment to fight in Breda-but his blade
leads him to another adventure. A desperate father hires him
to rescue his daughter from a convent where a powerful priest
is said to be using the girl as his personal concubine. The
father has been prevented from legal recourse because the
priest has threatened to reveal that the man’s family
is “not of pure blood”—is, in fact, of Jewish
descent—which will all but destroy the family name.
Alatriste agrees to help, and several nights later, under
the cloak of darkness, a rescue attempt is made.
But soon Alatriste discovers that he has
become part of a religious and political conspiracy that leads
all the way to the highest levels of the Inquisition. When
a date is set to burn the man’s daughter at the stake,
Captain Alatriste springs into action—sword first—setting
off a series of twists and turns that will keep readers riveted
to the page.
Translation by Margaret Sayers Peden.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte lives
near Madrid. Originally a war correspondent, he now writes
fiction full-time. His novels include The Flanders Panel,
The Club Dumas, The Fencing Master, The
Seville Communion, The Nautical Chart, and The
Queen of the South. In 2002, he was elected to the Spanish
Royal Academy.
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