The King's Gold (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Angélica de Alquézar, canvas breeches, buff coat, Captain Alatriste, Francisco de Quevedo, Sebastián Copons (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pérez-Reverte, a former war correspondent, continues his popular Captain Alatriste series with a fourth swashbuckling volume (following The Sun over Breda). Diego Alatriste, a wily veteran of many 17th-century military campaigns, and his sidekick, Inigo Balboa—who narrates—have returned to Seville after fighting in the siege of Breda. With funds short, Alatriste accepts a dangerous mission to intercept a load of smuggled gold and deposit it in the royal coffers. Trolling the criminal underworld of Seville, Alatriste recruits a band of ruffians, and disguised as pirates, they prepare to slip aboard the ship transporting the gold, surprise and subdue the crew and beach the vessel. What Alatriste doesn't expect to find on board is his old adversary Gualterio Malatesta and a large contingent of mercenaries. Fans of the series have come to expect historical authenticity, crisp prose, complex characters, exotic settings and plenty of sanguinary action. They won't be disappointed. (Aug.) ""
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From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com The fourth novel in the immensely satisfying Captain Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte opens with a Spanish galleon sailing into a home port that is festooned with English corpses. The slain enemies, fruit of a failed Anglo-Dutch attack on Cádiz, "hung from gallows erected on the shore, along the edge of the vineyards . . . bunches of grapes ripe for harvesting, except that these grapes had been harvested already." Such carnage is a welcome sight to Spanish eyes in 1626, even eyes as jaded as those of our hero, Alatriste. For us, though, the scene is unsettling. Instead of action, we find action's putrefied aftermath. The tone is not triumphant but exhausted. Alatriste, his young protégé Íñigo and his battered comrades are tired of adventures. But they need another one that pays well. An air of cynical resignation pervades The King's Gold. Pérez-Reverte, even as he stages exhilarating scenes, darkens the mood, making this novel one of his finest. "War is at least clean," Alatriste observes, whereas the business of empire is extremely grubby. The gold at the center of this novel has been smuggled from the West Indies and is destined not for King Philip's treasury but for "private pockets," perhaps even for the coffers of Spain's enemies. Pérez-Reverte succinctly explains the political and economic background, which we discover along with Alatriste as he learns the details of his mission: to recover the king's treasure from a ship off Seville. Not for glory or patriotism -- both sullied terms in Alatriste's world -- but for the gold itself. "Spain is going to the dogs," a courtier reflects. "Everyone steals, cheats, and lies and no one pays his debts." Except for Alatriste, whose dented moral compass still steers him toward loyalty and a man's word. "Since there were no old gods in whom one could trust," Íñigo observes, "no great words that could be bandied about during combat, it was a salve to everyone's honor -- or, at least, better than nothing at all -- to have a king for whom one could fight." A wistful narrator, Íñigo recalls not only their daring escapades but also his youthful self, hopelessly in love with the manipulative Angelica. Even stock scenes of romantic assignation, swordplay, torture and execution appear fresh and profound in these pages, tinged as they are with longing for a time that never was as glorious as other swashbucklers would have us believe.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (August 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399155104
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155109
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #230,847 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In the Footsteps of Dumas, Henty and Sabatini, August 20, 2008

By	Marco Antonio Abarca (Colorado) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The fourth volume in "The Adventures of Captain Alatriste" series is set in the port city of Sevilla. The annual treasure fleet is about to arrive and a powerful clique in the King's inner circle is planning to siphon off Royal Treasure for their own nefarious purposes. Another powerful group of noblemen want to stop them. This being Spain in its decadent Gold Age, hired blades will be needed. Who better to recruit and lead a party of mercenary swordsmen recruited from Sevilla's criminal underclass than the redoubtable Captain Alatriste and his loyal companion, Inigo Balboa?

For those of us who love the scwashbucklying genre of literature, we are fortunate that Arturo Perez Reverte is producing what will be the nine volume "Adventures of Captain Alatriste" series. Perez Reverte is a fine novelists who writes serious international best sellers. In between the more serious novels, he finds the time to publish further Alatriste adventures. Each volume is well written and filled with wonderful historical details from Spain's Golden Age.

I love the series and hope to one day read all nine volumes. However, the problem with the series is that each novel is essentially eposodic in nature. There is a lack of an over-arching story in each novel. One will have to read all nine novels to learn how the story turns out. I wish that Perez Reverte had sat down like Alexandre Dumas and wrote one really long novel. Perez Reverte will do in nine novels what Dumas did in one novel. I guess this is the difference between the great novels of the Nineteenth Century and the works that are produced today for our shorter attention spans.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Home from the wars, Alatriste receives a royal commission, February 23, 2009

By	Blue "in Washington" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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"The King's Gold" is the fourth episode in Perez-Reverte's saga of Diego Alatriste, 17th Century Spanish sword-for-hire. Like previous books in the series, this story focuses on a discrete period of time (a week in 1626), when Captain Alatriste and his stalwart ward/apprentice, Inigo Balboa, have just returned from a hard-scrabble deployment in the Netherlands where they were in the midst of brutal fighting against Dutch Protestants. Returning to Spain with empty pockets and almost in rags, they are offered a dangerous assignment in the service of the Spanish throne that could turn their fortunes around quickly, if they manage to survive.

The story line has its interests and charms, but as in most episodes of the Alatriste series, the greater enjoyment is in the backdrop and descriptions of the characters. The author's extraordinary research into the Spanish empire of the time, its court, 17th Century city life, naval shipping and much more, gives the reader a rich and complex picture that the story plays against. Perez-Reverte's language is clever and often elegant, and is highly effective in providing the reader with a further sense of the period. There are few false notes in the author's descriptions of how the characters are clothed, what they eating and drinking, how they cope with the problems of living rough, and how the city of Seville looked and functioned in 1626.

Perez-Reverte's observations on the political and social conditions of the Spanish state in the 17th Century are razor sharp and authentic sounding. Coming full circle, it is those conditions that shape the series' protagonist, Alatriste, and set virtually all of the context for his adventures.

"The King's Gold" is a welcome and highly enjoyable installment to masterful series. It has the added plus of leaving the good Captain Alatriste in an appreciably better material situation by the end of the story. Bring on number five!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All Good!, October 29, 2008

By	Michael J. Redding (Tucson, Arizona) - See all my reviews

Quite an accomplishment. Reverte's follow-up to the saga of Altriste continues into the backdrop of 16th and 17th century Spain. Historically accurate and a splendidly good read.