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.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, internationally acclaimed author of The Flanders Panel, The Flanders Panel, The Club Dumas and The Seville Communion, returns with a literary page-turner set during the political turmoil of late-19th-century Spain. While friends and countrymen argue monarchical imperatives and plot bloody revolution, the courtly and chivalrous Don Jaime Astarloa remains blissfully disinterested in worldly affairs -- preferring to devote himself to the completion of his life's work, a Treatise on the Art of Fencing. But when a beautiful and mysterious young woman with an intriguing scar at the corner of her mouth asks Don Jaime to teach her the secret of the unstoppable sword thrust, he soon finds himself unwittingly drawn into a secret plot that involves seduction, politics, blackmail, and murder.

Jane Bussey

Perez-Reverte likes his heroes strong, his plots complex, even almost literary, and his women a little dangerous. Perez-Reverte's trick of creating a hero with the flaws of Astraloa might have been too much in a novel written in the United States. But part of the fun of Perez- Reverte's books is that the reader does not immediately identify with the heroes. They are built outside of stereotype. Here is the true art. Perez-Reverte leads us through this intellectual thriller with the rhythm of a fencing match: thrust, parry, feint; thrust, parry feint. We follow the ploys spectators able to spot the mistakes, the opportunities for the opponent, the fatal errors. Any by the end, we care about the honorable fencing master, a dying breed, the hero described at one point as the "only honest person I know. —Miami Herald

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 In Madrid in 1868, fencing master and man of honor Don Jaime is approached by a mysterious woman who seeks to learn the secret of the unstoppable thrust, an arcane technique known only to him. All too soon he finds himself in the vortex of a plot that includes seduction, secret political documents, and more than one murder. Rich with the historical detail of a decaying world that agonizes -- as does the world of fencing itself -- over the ideals of honor and chivalry, The Fencing Master is superb literature and a true page-turner In Madrid in 1868, fencing master and man of honor Don Jaime is approached by a mysterious woman who seeks to learn the unstoppable thrust, an arcane technique known only to him. All too soon he finds himself in the vortex of a plot that includes seduction, secret political documents, and more than one murder. Rich with historical detail of a decaying world that agonizes - as does the art of fencing itself - over the ideals of honor and chivalry, The Fencing Master is superb literature and a true page-turner. Much later, when Jaime Astarloa wanted to piece together the scattered fragments of the tragedy and tried to remember how it all began, the first image that came to his mind was of the marquis and of the gallery in the palace overlooking the Retiro Gardens, with the first heat of summer streaming in through the windows, accompanied by such brilliant sunlight that they had to squint against the dazzle on the polished guards of their foils. 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