Pirates of the Levant

More adventures of Captain Alatriste and his intrepid young companion Inigo Balboa in Arturo Perez-Reverte's latest: Pirates of the Levant (#223).  I came across this book last week when our local library had a display of non-fiction pirate books, and novels featuring pirates in conjunction with the Pirate Festival going on in town.  This book caught my eye when I recognized Perez-Reverte's name on the cover, and it was a welcome discovery.

I've missed two books in the series, as was evident from the references to shared adventures in the past, but this book concentrates on the time Captain Alatriste and Balboa, who is now old enough to feel himself an equal of his former master, spend as soldiers on a Spanish galley, patrolling the Mediterranean.  There was a time when the Spanish were even more to be feared in the Levant than the Turks or Barbary Coast pirates.  They raided both for the honor of Spain and to line their own pockets - after the King and the government and officers take their shares, of course.  Life was hard on the galleys, so the sailors and soldiers on board lived for the excitement of a raid or battle, or a chance to get up to mischief while in port.  The novel climaxes with a recounting of the naval battle of Cap Nero, in which two Spanish galleys, accompanied by a ship belonging to the Knights of Malta, are trapped by seven Turkish vessels in a duel to the death.

As usual, the book is sprinkled with snippets of Spanish poetry quoted by both Alatriste and Balboa as the narrative meanders along.  There isn't so much a plot as a recounting of what the life of a typical sea bound Spanish soldier was like in the early 16th century, with bows to the principals' past, and hints of what is to come in their futures.  Still fascinating...