Arturo Pérez-Reverte

A whodunit set in the art world. The protagonist is Julia, an art restoration expert in Madrid who is cleaning a 15th Century painting. The painting shows a duke and his knight playing chess and the story begins when, with the aid of x-rays, Julia discovers an inscription hidden in a corner, "Who killed the knight?"

Wounded seventeenth-century Spanish soldier Alatriste works as a swordsman-for-hire in Madrid, but when his latest job takes an unexpectedly deadly turn, he realizes he is in the employ of one of the Spanish Inquisition's most dangerous figures.

"Mayo de 1937. La Guerra Civil sigue su sangriento curso en España, pero también lejos de los campos de batalla se combate entre las sombras. Una doble misión lleva a Lorenzo Falcó hasta París con el objetivo de intentar, de cualquier forma posible, que el Guernica que está pintando Pablo Picasso no llegue nunca a la Exposición Universal donde la República pretende conseguir apoyo internacional. Aunque ya se adivinan en Europa los vientos...

When she discovers that her boyfriend Guero, a Mexican drug smuggler, has been killed by rivals and that she is the next target, Teresa Mendoza must give up her old life and become a member of a dark and deadly world in order to survive.

A punto de incorporarse a su antiguo tercio en Flandes, Diego Alatriste se ve envuelto por mediación de su amigo don Francisco de Quevedo en otra peligrosa aventura. Una mujer ha apaarecido estrangulada en una silla de manos frente a la iglesia de San Ginés, con una bolsa de dinero y una nota manuscrita: Para misas por su alma. El enigma se complica con los sucesos misteriosos que ocurren tras las paredes de un convento, cuando Alatriste es contratado...

Upon returning to Spain from Flanders in 1626, Captain Alatriste and his young protege, Inigo Balboa, are sent to Seville to find out who is smuggling contraband gold from the Indies, and there they meet danger, betrayal, and old friends and enemies.

Swordsman-for-hire Alatriste and his teenage protege rejoin Alatriste's elite Cartagena regiment during the siege of Breda, an effort that is complicated by the growing power of Luis de Alquezar.

Hired to rescue a man's daughter from a convent where a powerful corrupt priest is forcing her to be his personal concubine, Alatriste finds himself thrust into a religious and political conspiracy with ties to the highest levels of the Inquisition.