The Sun Over Breda (Capitan Alatriste Series #3)

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Overview

The third swashbuckling adventure in the internationally acclaimed Captain Alatriste series.

Fifteen-year-old Iñigo Balboa enlists to serve as his master’s aide, and narrates their further adventures of swordplay and skirmishes, mutiny and wartime honor, as Captain Alatriste rejoins his Cartagena regiment to take part in the battles and siege of Breda. In Spain, Alatriste’s nemesis, Luis de Alquézar, grows more powerful, as Iñigo’s mysterious friend Angélica hints at some plans upon his return. Once again the exploits of the seventeenth-century mercenary will thrill and delight the legions of readers eager to cheer a hero for the ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452289741
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/24/2008
Series:	Capitan Alatriste Series , #3
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.21(w) x 7.94(h) x 0.63(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s novels have captivated readers around the world and earned him a reputation as “the master of the intellectual thriller” (Chicago Tribune). Originally a war correspondent, he now writes fiction full-time. His novels include the Captain Alatriste series, The Flanders Panel, The Club Dumas, The Fencing Master, The Seville Communion, The Nautical Chart, The Queen of the South, and What We Become. His books have been published in fifty countries.He is a member of the Spanish Royal Academy. He lives near Madrid, Spain.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for the Captain Alatriste series

“Equipped with a quick-witted, charismatic hero and much to provoke and goad him, Mr. Pérez-Reverte has the makings of a flamboyantly entertaining series. Captain Alatriste ends with a wicked flourish, an evil laugh, and a strong likelihood that the best is yet to come.”—The New York Times

“Pérez-Reverte’s moody, wounded semi-hero—part cantankerous mercenary, part man of honor in a roiling society of pomp, pistols, and provocation—is a whole-cloth invention out ofa17th-century Madrid that has led to a 21st-century literary phenomenon....The clash and dash are thrilling; the swordplay is a bonus.”—Entertainment Weekly

“High-level intrigue and double-dealing in the tradition of Alexandre Dumas.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Though Pérez-Reverte fills the swashbuckling story with nonstop action, Captain Alatriste is also a contemplation of life and death, which adds depth to the good, unclean fun.”—The Miami Herald

“Pérez-Reverte’s pacing is swift and suspenseful, the narrative voice both crisply cinematic and true to the setting of seventeenth-century Spain...a feast of dark historical detail and believable danger.”—The Denver Post

From the Publisher

Absolutely riveting from beginning to end.

Entertainment Weekly

A flamboyantly entertaining series.

New York Times

A rousing escapade narrated by Alatriste's teenage page.

Washington Post Book World

A former war correspondent, Spanish novelist Pérez-Reverte continues his internationally acclaimed Captain Alatriste series with a third translated volume (following Purity of Blood), every bit as terse and engaging as previous books. Diego Alatriste, a 17th-century mercenary and wily veteran of campaigns from Italy to Flanders, is part of the army of Spanish King Philip IV—a defender of the Catholic faith—that's trying to suppress the Calvinist heretics of the Low Countries. Narrated is retrospect by Íñigo Balboa, who at the time of the action was Alatriste's 14-year-old page, this installment focuses on the Spaniards' siege of the fortified rebel city of Breda. As the stalemate drags on, the battle becomes less "a matter of military interest to Spain but, rather, one of reputation." Its power and influence in decline, Spain's lingering hopes to avoid another embarrassing setback in Flanders rest with stoic warriors like Alatriste. The action is fast, furious, and sanguinary, and Pérez-Reverte grimly recreates the universal madness and desperation of combat. He also captures the tedium and misery that is the common soldier's everyday fate and the zealotry with which Christians—Catholic and Protestant alike—once massacred each other. Factually sound and vividly imagined, this latest incarnation of Captain Alatriste will cheer old fans and win new ones. (Apr.)

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Publishers Weekly

After the dark and moody swordplay of Captain Alatristeand Purity of Blood, featuring impeccably ethical mercenary-hero Capt. Diego Alatriste, Pérez-Reverte marches us to Flanders for the Siege of Breda in 1624–25. The good captain has rejoined his regiment to help Spain take the city, and his faithful young retainer, Íñigo Balboa, again narrates events. Professional to a fault, the Spaniards conduct difficult and dangerous raids without complaint while staging an effective protest over lack of pay. The captain coolly dispatches a fellow soldier who has insulted him after threatening Íñigo and just as coolly refuses to be drawn into a sanctioned duel with soldiers on the opposing side. Unfortunately, Alatriste does get a bit lost in the panoramic action—a real pity, given his riveting presence. This is very much a blow-by-blow account of battle, with the one overarching point of contention being whether the captain appears in Velázquez's sprawling Surrender of Breda. Not all readers will find it as engaging as the first two books in the series, though it's intriguing to see this battle from the Spanish perspective, and Pérez-Reverte is faultless in his portrayal of war as hell. [See Prepub Alert, LJ9/1/06.]
—Barbara Hoffert

Library Journal

The siege of the Dutch city of Breda in the late-16th century near the end of the Hundred Years' War is the subject of this third installment in Perez-Reverte's five-volume saga. As in its predecessors (Captain Alatriste, 2005, etc.), I-igo Balboa, teenaged servant and battlefield companion to the eponymous Captain, narrates a tale of violent action and courage under fire engaging enough to have flowed from the pen of another Dumas. At its outset, the adventurous pair have joined Spanish infantry troops fighting in Flanders to wrest possession of a thriving (and strategically located metropolis) from the "heretic" (i.e., Calvinist) Dutch and their allies, and bring it under the control of Spain's Catholic King Philip II. After a lively beginning, the narrative sputters, as the weight of its author's obviously considerable research permits I-igo to overindulge in expository detailing of military, political and religious particulars. Fortunately, his is an energetic intellect, and-like Thomas Berger's "Little Big Man" Jack Crabb-I-igo eavesdrops on great men's doings, and makes his own modest marks on history, first by helping future playwright Calder-n de la Barca rescue endangered books from a burning library, later by providing painter Diego Velazquez with information crucial to the creation of the latter's masterpiece The Surrender of Breda. The author neatly sidesteps redundancies implicit in successive descriptions of not dissimilar battles by focusing on such unconventional matters as burgeoning discontent (and near "mutiny") among exhausted and unpaid soldiers, a Dutch "challenge" which leads to an episode of "five against five" combat and, through I-igo's adoring yet sharp eyes, apowerful indirect characterization of his cynical, war-weary Captain ("sickened with pain and blood"). And there's some delightful metafictional misdirection in a pair of sly appendices. Don't miss the exciting conclusions.

Kirkus Reviews