Purity of Blood [Paperback]

4 and 1/2 stars.

"Purity of Blood" is Arturo Pérez-Reverte's exciting sequel to "Captain Alatriste". Written in the swashbuckling style of Dumas and set in early 17th-century Madrid, "Captain Alatriste" introduced us to the hero of Captain Diego Alatriste. Diego is newly returned from Spain's war in Flanders and ready to hire himself out as a bodyguard and general sword-for-hire.

"Purity of Blood" finds Diego on a new adventure. His friend, Don Francisco de Quevado, introduces Diego to an aging father who seeks to rescue his daughter from a convent. The convent is not a place of worship but, rather a place of obscene debauchery overseen by an aristocratic priest with connections at the court of King Phillip IV. The father's attempt to seek the release of his daughter is met with a threat to reveal the family as `conversos' (Catholics who have Jewish blood). Exposure as a converse is a powerful threat in a country in which the forces of the inquisition can imprison torture and burn conversos at the stake.

The story is narrated by Inigo Balboa, Alatriste's young page, in the manner of Dr. Watson's memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. As with any Holmes story, the game is quickly afoot and Alatriste launches a rescue attempt. Alatriste quickly discovers that the best laid plans of mice and swordsmen-for-hire can be beset with complications. Antagonists from his first adventure, particularly the Italian assassin Gualterio Malatesta, return to seek revenge both on Alatriste and Balboa for their actions in "Captain Alatriste".

Pérez-Reverte does an excellent job moving the story along. As one might expect in a series, the character of Alatriste and the other recurring players introduced in Captain Alatriste are fleshed out. Although there is plenty of action in Purity of Blood Pérez-Reverte provides a great deal of period detail about Spain, the inquisition, and daily life in the sometimes sordid and dangerous streets of 17th-century Madrid. Balboa's reflections on Spain's social structure, the vagaries of the reign of Phillip IV, and his discourse on the beginning of Spain's fall from an imperial world power of the first rank to that of a nation marked by dissolution and decay are both entertaining and informative.

Purity of Blood is an excellent story and well worth reading. However, because this is a sequel, and because many of the characters and the relationship among those characters is formed in "Captain Alatriste" I think it advisable for the reader to start with the first book, which has recently been issued in paperback. Both books are well worth reading and Purity of Blood has recently been released in paperback.

Purity of Blood is well worth reading.

L. Fleisig

Arturo Perez-Reverte's "Purity of Blood" is second in the Captain Alatriste series of historical adventure novels, currently a 5-volume series of books which began publication in Spain in the mid 1990s. The books follow the adventures of Captain Alatriste and his adolescent protege Inigo Balboa as they swashbuckler their way through 17th-century Spain. The Alatriste books are obviously aimed closer to the commercial market than much of Perez-Reverte's other work, evoking associations as they do with "The Three Musketeers" or Johnston McCulley's Zorro stories. "Purity of Blood" is set against the backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition. During one of Alatriste's adventures, he and his companions fall into a trap and young Inigo--framed as a "Judaizer"--falls afoul of the Inquisition.

The book does have its good moments, such as the scene in which Alatriste, trying to find some way to rescue Inigo, confronts a most powerful politician, a bureaucrat at first disinclined to give them any aid. Pushed to desperation, Alatriste, usually a quiet, stoic man, delivers a monologue in which we see the undeniable potency of melodrama:

"'Excellency. I have nothing but the sword I live by and my record of service, which means nothing to anyone.' The captain spoke very slowly, as if thinking aloud more than addressing the first minister of two worlds. 'Neither am I a man of many words or resources. But they are going to burn an innocent lad whose father, my comrade, died fighting in those wars that are as much the king's as they are yours. Perhaps I, and Lope Balboa, and Balboa's son, do not tip the scale that Your Excellency so rightly mentioned. Yet one never knows what twists and turns life will take, nor whether one day the full reach of a good blade will not be more beneficial than all the papers and all the notaries and all the royal seals in the world. If you help the orphan of one of your soldiers, I give you my word that on such a day you can count on me.'"

Unfortunately, the elements of plot and character in "Purity of Blood" take a seat at the far back of this bus, a bus clearly driven by the story's mise-en-scene. Essentially, the novel is all about its historical milieu--an excuse for the author to recreate the Spanish Inquisition and emphasize the gross anti-Semitism of the era. Thus, the novel comes off sounding more like an anthropology experiment, a modernist morality tale. And the story's meager adventuring suffers for this. The trouble here is very well demonstrated in a line of narrative late in the novel, a line that illuminates Perez-Reverte's racial guilt and his gaudy, off-putting, public self-flagellation: "It seemed that to be lucid and Spanish would forever be coupled with great bitterness and little hope."

This second, after "Captain Alatriste," in a projected series of seven by the Spanish best-selling author features Diego Alatriste, a taciturn, brooding 17th century soldier, mercenary and man of honor, and his 13-year-old ward Inigo Balboa in a story as filled with atmosphere as it is action.

The atmosphere is pretty gritty, having mostly to do with the Inquisition and the Madrid underworld of cutthroats, criminals and fugitives of all kinds. Narrated by Balboa some years after the events, the story takes place in 1623. Alatriste accepts a job from a converso family - Jews who converted to Christianity - to rescue their daughter from a convent that is run more like a brothel than a house of God.

But the rescue goes awry and in the ensuing mayhem Balboa is captured by the Inquisition, though not without putting up quite a fight. Thereafter the narrative alternates between Balboa's interrogations and experiences in prison and Alatriste's efforts to find and rescue him while eluding capture himself.

The characters are well fleshed out and Balboa's voice is particularly wry and appealing. Alatriste paints a vivid picture of 17th century Spain and its politics, daily life and dangers. There's plenty of action, though it's more thoughtful than swashbuckling. Not quite at the level of Patrick O'Brian's seafaring adventures, this should appeal to readers who enjoy that level of historical detail and literate writing with their derring-do.

-- Portsmouth Herald

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