Trade paperback edition. Unread. Fine in pictorial wraps. Mystery (#9510) ISBN: 0679777547

A cross between Umberto Eco and Anne Rice. . . .Think of The Club Dumas as a beach book for intellectuals."--New York Daily News

Lucas Corso, middle-aged, tired, and cynical, is a book detective, a mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found hanged, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment.

The task seems straightforward, but the unsuspecting Corso is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas's masterpiece. Aided by a mysterious beauty named for a Conan Doyle heroine, Corso travels from Madrid to Toledo to Paris in pursuit of a sinister and seemingly omniscient killer. Part mystery, part puzzle, part witty intertextual game, The Club Dumas is a wholly original intellectual thriller by the internationally bestselling author of The Flanders Panel and The Seville Communion.

Filmed (sorta) as The Ninth Gate starring Johnny Depp.

[recommended]

Trade paperback edition. Unread. Fine in pictorial wraps. Mystery (#9507) ISBN: 0156006847

In Madrid, in 1868, Don Jaime, fencing master and anachronistic man of honor, is working on his Treatise on the Art of Fencing. One day he is approached by a mysterious woman who seeks to learn the secret of "the unstoppable thrust," a supreme moment at the very heart of the art of fencing. All too soon he finds himself in the vortex of a plot that includes seduction, secret political documents, and more than one murder. Rich in historical detail of a decaying world that agonizes-as does fencing itself-over the ideals of honor and chivalry, The Fencing Master is superb literature and a true page-turner.

Trade paperback edition. Unread. Fine in pictorial wraps. Mystery (#9508) ISBN: 0553377868

A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned off. It represents a game of chess between two historical figures, the Duke of Flanders and his knight. A dark lady in the background sits at a window reading a book. Julia, a young art expert in Madrid, hired to clean the painting, discovers in an X ray an inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight?

As more and more clues reveal themselves, Julia becomes obsessed with the question - and in the hunt for the Renaissance murderer finds herself involved with several late-twentieth-century unscrupulous characters: the director of the Madrid branch of Claymore's, the former conductor of the Madrid symphony orchestra, a cocaine-sniffing art historian, a homosexual antique dealer, and a scruffy chess player. All of them sleuths and suspects in this great game of chess, adventure, love, and life.

Filmed (sorta) as Uncovered with Kate Beckinsale.

[recommended]

Trade paperback edition. Unread. Fine in pictorial wraps. Mystery (#9509) ISBN: 0156013053

Coy is a suspended sailor without a ship. At an auction in Barcelona, he meets a beautiful woman obsessed with the Dei Gloria, a Jesuit ship sunk by pirates in the seventeenth century. T"nger uses her considerable skills with men and her expertise with atlases and nautical maps to search for the ship's rumored lost treasure. Coy is quickly drawn into the search, and finds himself falling in love as they seek their fortune together. Or do they? tTheir journey becomes dangerous. Does the treasure really exist? Are there secrets dwelling in the depths of the sea? And what of the depths of the heart? This suspensefully plotted novel combines the richness of atmosphere we have come to expect from Arturo P!"rez-Reverte with the addictive romance and mystery of the sea. A riveting read, it is an unforgettable adventure.

First US hardcover edition. Unread. Fine in fine dust jacket. Mystery (#9925) ISBN: 0399151850

Teresa Mendoza's boyfriend is a pilot the narcos of Sinalosa, Mexico call "the king of the short runway" because he can get a plane full of cocaine off the ground in 300 yards. But in a ruthless business, life is often short, and Teresa has a special cell phone that Guero gave her, along with a dark warning: If that phone rings, it means he's dead, and she'd better run because they're coming for her next.

Then the call comes and, in order to survive, she will have to find inside herslef a woman tough enough to inhabit a world as ugly and dangerous as that of the narcos. And indeed, the strength of the woman who emerges will surprise even those who know her legend -- that of the Queen of the South.

[highly recommended]

Trade paperback edition. Unread. Fine in pictorial wraps. Mystery (#9511) ISBN: 0156006391

The #1 international bestseller-a thrilling page-turner by the author of The Flanders Panel and The Club Dumas. Someone has hacked into the Pope's personal computer-not to spy on the Vatican or to spread a virus, but to send an urgent plea for help: SAVE OUR LADY OF THE TEARS. The crumbling Baroque church in the heart of Seville is slated for demolition-but two of its defenders have suddenly died. Accidents? Or murders? And was the church itself somehow involved? The Vatican promptly dispatches Father Lorenzo Quart, their worldly and enormously attractive emissary, to investigate the situation, track down the hacker, known only as "Vespers"-and stay alive. Thus begins a sophisticated and utterly suspenseful page-turner that has taken its readers by storm. The Seville Communion is superb entertainment, a rich and intricate thriller that announces another triumph by a master storyteller who excels at the intellectually provocative mystery.