THE FENCING MASTER (Orginal title: El Maestro de Esgrima)

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 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 Dona 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.

THE FLANDERS PANEL (La Tabla de Flandes)

A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned off. It represents a game of chess between two historical figures, the Duke of Flanders and his knight. A dark lady in the background sits at a window reading a book. Julia, a young art expert in Madrid, hired to clean the painting, discovers in an X ray an inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight? As more and more clues reveal themselves, Julia becomes obsessed with the question - and in the hunt for the Renaissance murderer finds herself involved with several late-twentieth-century unscrupulous characters: the director of the Madrid branch of Claymore's, the former conductor of the Madrid symphony orchestra, a cocaine-sniffing art historian, a homosexual antique dealer, and a scruffy chess player. All of them sleuths and suspects in this great game of chess, adventure, love, and life.

THE CLUB DUMAS (El Club Dumas)

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.

THE SEVILLE COMMUNION (La Piel del Tambor)

A hacker cracks Vatican security and sends an urgent plea directly to the Pope: Save Our Lady of the Tears. The crumbling Baroque church, located in the heart of Seville, is slated for demolition, and two of its defenders have recently died. Accidents - or murders? The Vatican promptly dispatches Father Lorenzo Quart, their worldly and enormously attractive emissary, to investigate the situation and track down the hacker, known to the Vatican only as Vespers. Father Quart's search for Vespers leads him to Father Priamo Ferro, the coarse and zealous parish priest, who has the full devotion of his small flock; Sister Gris Marsala, a former nun from California who is determined to restore the church; Pencho Gavira, the ambitious young vice-chairman of the Cartujano Bank; his estranged wife, Macarena, a perfect Andalusian beauty whose aristocratic family is closely linked to the church's history; Macarena's mother, the Duchess of El Nuevo Extremo, an elegant insomniac with a taste for Coca-Cola; and Honorato Bonafe, a tabloid reporter bent on getting the dirt on everyone. Father Quart is slowly seduced by the splendor of Seville - and the beauty of Macarena. As time runs out on the church, he is caught between powerful developers who have a stake in Our Lady of the Tears and his loyalty to the Vatican and his own vows.

THE NAUTICAL CHART (La Carta Esférica)

Coy is a suspended sailor with time on his hands, a mariner without a ship. While attending a maritime auction in Barcelona, he meets a beautiful woman who immediately captures his imagination. Tánger Soto, who works for the Naval Museum in Madrid, is obsessed with the Dei Gloria, a Jesuit ship sunk by pirates in the seventeenth century, and now-she hopes-resting on the bottom of the sea off the southern coast of Spain. Tánger uses her considerable manipulative skills with men and her expertise with documents, atlases, and nautical maps to chart the search for lost treasure. Coy is quickly drawn into the search, and before long finds himself falling in love. Along with El Piloto, the world-wise old man of the sea whose sailboat will carry this adventurous crew, they seek their fortune together. Or do they? As these lively characters follow the course of past sailors, their own journey becomes perilous. Are there secrets dwelling in the depths of the sea? And what of the depths of the heart?

EL CAPITÁN ALATRISTE

Diego Alatriste is a swordsman in a dangerous and corrupt seventeenth-century Spain, where his services are requested to settle debts or restore a family's reputation. When he is hired by the Holy Inquisition to kill mysterious travelers, guests of British ambassador, he knows he is in serious trouble.

LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE

A woman has been found strangled in front of a local church. On her lap, a bag full of coins and note For masses for her soul. In a nearby convent for young society ladies, the chaplain is having unconventional encounters with his novices. Capitán Alatriste will soon discover how these two facts are connected by an entangled net of power, faith, and death.

EL SOL DE BREDA

Enlisted as aide of Capitán Alatriste in the Spanish regiments, Inigo de Balboa tries to survive in a world where he needs to get very close to his enemy in order to kill him with his sword. He witnesses a historic moment, the surrender of Breda, that he would retell later to his friend Velazquez for famous painting.

LA REINA DEL SUR

Derived from factual evidence, Pérez-Reverte brings us a surprising novel with an interesting twist. This time, the hero is a woman named Teresa Mendoza who is nicknamed by journalists as "The Queen of the South" and "The Mexican" by the authorities of three continents. Teresa narrates her story as it unfolds in Mexico over twelve years ago when she was the girlfriend of a pilot employed by drug lords. She did not know how to read nor write, however, after her boyfriend is murdered, she began creating an empire from nothing in the male-dominated world of drug trafficking. Henceforth, the journey begins as she grows her business by conducting deals with the mafias from Spain, France, Italy and Russia.