The Club Dumas

Arturo Perez-Reverte

May 2006 · HarperCollins

About this ebook

A rare book investigator gets caught in a deadly plot among Europe’s elite literati in this acclaimed thriller—“a cross between Umberto Eco and Anne Rice” (New York Daily News).

Lucas Corso is a book detective, a middle-aged mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found dead, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment.

Corso is soon drawn into a swirling conspiracy 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 on the killer's trail in this twisty intellectual romp through the book world.

"Erudite, funny, loopy, brilliant . . . action-adventure spied with dollops of idiosyncrasy—and some very good talk.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

Ratings and reviews

I adore this book. I've loved it since the first time I read it a couple of years after the Roman Polanski/Johnny Depp film, The Ninth Gate came out. While the film butchered the story beyond comoherension, Depp portrayed the main character Corso quite spot on. This book however is a great mix of thriller, mystery and a bit of the occult, well blended by a master of these types of tales. It's a highly enjoyable book.

If you watched the movie "The Ninth Gate" but were unaware of the book the film was based on then,IMHO,you pexperienced a watered down story.Although the movie was entertaining the book was the epitome of a book that was hard to put down.I would definitely recommend reading the book and I am confident that you will not be disappointed.Also I believe that most of the people that finish the novel will read more of Perez-Reverte's work.

I have read this book more times than I can count. I was introduced to the book after watching the movie "The Nineth Gate". Since then, this book has got to my most read book. I love it, as does my daughter, who introduced me to the movie. Read it, you will enjoy it.

About the author

ARTURO PEREZ-REVERTE is the award-winning author of many critically acclaimed novels, including The Club Dumas, The Flanders Panel, and the Captain Alatriste series. A retired war journalist, he lives in Madrid and is a member of the Royal Spanish Academy.