Book Review: The King's Gold by Arturo Perez Reverte

This summer, I studied in Italy for two-weeks. On the weekend, a classmate and I visited the Cinque Terre by train. It's a wondrous place that even great pictures can't do justice:

The northernmost town of the Cinque Terre is Monterosso al Mare, a Mediterranean resort town. While we wandered the ristorantes and hotels, I searched for something to read on the long train ride back to Asolo. I checked one news shop, then another. In a last-ditch effort, I scanned a beach-front store with a small shelf of English language books. Tucked in the far corner I discovered The King's Gold by Arturo Perez Reverte, the fourth novel in the Captain Alatriste series, which I adore.

So, I had a bizarrely continental experience reading an English translation of a Spanish adventure novel while travelling by train in Italy. It was a comfort on a lonely train ride back through the Italian countryside and industry towns.

The book reads rapidly. It's a scoundrel's adventure where Captain Alatriste works a secret mission for the king to intercept a treasure galleon. His youthful sidekick narrator, Inigo, grows up a bit on the adventure as he watches and learns from a cadre of criminals Alatriste enlists to complete the job. They fight, and some die, in the climactic assault on the beached ship. There's the flamboyant bon vivant, the brute, the ultimately cowardly swindler. And yet, once again, Perez Reverte creates a fleeting sense of sympathy for the underside of Spanish society, doomed to ugly fates by the corrupt and powerful.

Nestled among the rogue's heist are Inigo's blindly brave love for Angélica de Alquézar, the beautiful and devious daughter of one of Alatriste's key enemies. She teases and entraps Inigo, who senses her dangerous intentions, but dives in smitten anyway. In a key scene, he dares to face his killers alone at her behest, accepting it as a noble death. Of course, Alatriste intervenes and even Angélica is impressed by Inigo's bravery.

These moments of poetic nobility by the commoners, thugs and hopeless romantics are the series in a nutshell. Perez Reverte keeps up the swashbuckling goodness and slighly melodramatic flair for a constantly amusing string of adventure yarns. The King's Gold is a blunter force in the series, but entertaining nonetheless.

The King's Gold by Arturo Perez Reverte: B