The Fencing Master

Everyone in Madrid in the torrid fall of 1868 is discussing political plots and revolution except for Don Jaime. He is a fencing master and a man of honor, an anachronism. For years he has been working on a Treatise on the Art of Fencing, the heart of which is his perfection of the unstoppable thrust. He is approached one day by a beautiful and mysterious woman with a scar at the corner of her mouth that hints at dark violence. She asks the maestro to teach her the unstoppable thrust. Even though Do-a Adela de Otero's weapons of charm and elegance are formidable, Don Jaime declines. But he is entirely unprepared for the unhurried, sure, and inexplicable movements that follow. Soon he finds himself involved in a plot that includes seduction, politics, secret documents, and murder. Rich with the historical detail of a decaying world that agonizes-as does the art of fencing-over ideals of honor and chivalry, The Fencing Master is superb literature and an honest-to-goodness page-turner. 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. "A cross between Umberto Eco and Anne Rice. Think of The Club Dumas as a beach book for intellectuals."--New York Daily News. 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. Lucas Corso's search for the original copy of a book of the occult takes him from Madrid to Paris and into a secret society of antiquarians A murder mystery in 1886 Madrid featuring an old fencing master who still teaches in the age of the pistol. He is famous for his unstoppable thrust and one day a beautiful woman arrives asking he teach it to her. The novel traces their relationship. By the author of The Flanders Panel. I. The Fencing Bout -- 5 -- II. Compound Attack with Two Feints -- 31 -- III. Uncertain 'Time' on a False Attack -- 57 -- IV. The Short Lunge -- 81 -- V. Glissade -- 128 -- VI. An Attack on the Blade -- 156 -- VII. The Appel -- 181 -- VIII. With Bare Blades-- 207. Lucas Corso searches for a book which supposedly contains the secret to summoning The Devil