The Siege: A Novel
Arturo Perez-Reverte, Frank Wynne
Language: English
Pages: 624
ISBN: 1400069688
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION’S INTERNATIONAL DAGGER
For fans of Alan Furst and Carlos Ruiz Zafón comes a haunting and layered thriller filled with history, adventure, suspense, and an unforgettable love story—by the internationally bestselling author Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
Cádiz, 1811: The Spanish port city has been surrounded by Napoleon’s army for a year. Their backs to the sea, its residents endure routine bombardments and live in constant fear of a French invasion. And now the bodies of random women have begun to turn up throughout the city—victims of a shadowy killer.
Police Comisario Rogelio Tizón has been assigned the case. Known for his razor-sharp investigation skills—as well as his brutal interrogation methods—Tizón has seen everything. Or so he thought. His inquiry into the murders reveals a surprising pattern: Each victim has been found where a French bomb exploded. Logic tells him to pass it off as coincidence; his instinct tells him otherwise, and he begins to view Cádiz as a living chessboard, with himself and the killer the main players.
In a city pushed to the brink, violence and desperation weave together the lives of a group of unlikely people: the Spanish taxidermist who doubles as a French spy; the young woman who uses her father’s mercantile business to run the enemy blockade; the rough-edged corsair who tries to resist her charms; and the brilliant academic furiously trying to perfect the French army’s artillery and bring Cádiz to its knees once and for all. And as Napoleon presses closer, Tizón must make his next move on the bomb-scarred chessboard before the killer claims another pawn.
Combining fast-paced narrative with scrupulous historical accuracy, this smart, suspenseful tale of human resilience is Arturo Pérez-Reverte at the height of his talents.
Praise for The Siege
“A genre-bending literary thriller . . . Pirates; serial killings; steamy, unrequited love: Pérez-Reverte imbues the sensational with significance. . . . His descriptions of the town and people of Cádiz capture colors, smells and personalities, making the page come to life, and he balances these sensory passages with dense observations about history, metaphysics, science, and human nature.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Bold . . . [Pérez-Reverte’s] best yet . . . an ambitious intellectual thriller peopled with colorful rogues and antiheroes, meticulous in its historical detail, with a plot that rattles along to its unexpected finale. It’s hard to think of a contemporary author who so effortlessly marries popular and literary fiction as enjoyably as this.”—The Observer
“Pérez-Reverte has long been Spain’s most popular, inventive writer of historical fiction. . . . This is a big and bold novel, rich in character and incident.”—The Sunday Times
Acclaim for Arturo Pérez-Reverte
“John le Carré meets Gabriel García Márquez . . . Pérez-Reverte has a huge following . . . and it’s spreading.”—The Wall Street Journal
“The Da Vinci Code and The Rule of Four . . . pale in comparison with Pérez-Reverte’s novels.”—Time Out New York
“It’s a rare novelist who can create a literary page-turner. Arturo Pérez-Reverte . . . is one of those rarities.”—The Denver Post
and tries to imagine what he would do. He knows his men will have heard the shots and will come running. This time he has got him, he thinks. The wolf has sunk his teeth into his prey and is not about to let go. Not while he can corral him in a little more. The first thing is to seal off the area for as long as necessary. Close the net. Let no one out without frisking them from head to foot. Standing in the swirling fog, Tizón slips the pistol into his pocket, brings the whistle to his lips and
improbable places where silence becomes absolute and the air seems to hang, suspended. The bell jar, the vortex that leads to the next square of the chessboard that is the city and the bay. He has finally seen the game. And so, rather than rush forward with a shout of triumph or a growl of satisfaction, the comisario moves diagonally across the checkered floor, slowly, soundlessly; he carefully scrutinizes everything, and savors the prickling sensation in the fingers that grip his cane. He moves
that engages all his imagination and his skill. As far as he is concerned, war—something he has only recently experienced, having previously been professor of physics at the School of Applied Artillery in Metz—is a matter of the practical application of the scientific theories to which he has devoted his entire life. His weapon is a slide rule, he likes to say, and his gunpowder trigonometry. The sweeping panorama of the city and the bay is not a target but a technical challenge. He does not say
“That’s what I heard.” “Soldier or officer?” “Officer, I think.” “Now that is something … Did you get a name?” “There you’ve got me.” Tizón strokes his mustache. An officer prepared to cross over to enemy territory is always a danger. He gets there, he talks a bit to ingratiate himself and it’s a short step from desertion to high treason. And although deserters fall under military jurisdiction, when it involves the passing of information or espionage, they also come under Tizón’s
fall back onto her shoulders—she is wearing her hair in a braided coil, pinned with a mother-of-pearl comb at the nape of her neck. She slips the missal into a black satin bag, lets her fan dangle from the cord on her right wrist and walks toward the shops between the corner of the Calle de San Francisco and the Calle del Consulado Viejo, where there are secondhand bookshops and shops selling prints and engravings. Before going home, she plans to walk down to the Plaza de San Agustín to collect