The Club Dumas (Alfaguara Hispanica, #102)

by Arturo Perez-Reverte

[empressbrooke]

I realized as I got 1/4 into this book that I've read it before. It's sort of a confusing tale - I was pretty sure I had read this years ago when I read [b:The Flanders Panel|11031|The Flanders Panel|Arturo Pérez-Reverte|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328874807s/11031.jpg|1248065] and [b:The Seville Communion|11033|The Seville Communion|Arturo Pérez-Reverte|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1305158518s/11033.jpg|52761]. The book I thought it was started with a man in the library of a home that is burning down, but the summary on the back cover wasn't ringing any bells, so I thought that maybe I was wrong about reading it before. I was right that I'd read it before, but it wasn't the book with the man in the fire.

It's difficult to give much information plot-wise about The Club Dumas without spoiling anything, so I'll just say that it involves rare book collectors, The Three Musketeers, books that are portals to the Devil, and five bajillion book references. It's a thriller and mystery for bibliophiles, one of my favorite types of books.

Its only weakness is the ending, something I've found in all of [a:Pérez-Reverte|40398|Arturo Pérez-Reverte|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1415196332p2/40398.jpg]'s books. I remember getting to the end of [b:The Flanders Panel|11031|The Flanders Panel|Arturo Pérez-Reverte|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328874807s/11031.jpg|1248065] and saying, eh? what? He does such a fantastic job weaving a mysterious tale that just pulls you along, and then the endings sort of throw out a solution that isn't wholly satisfying. I think my main issue is that I never really understand the motivations of the villains. I always wonder if something was lost in translation, if Pérez-Reverte just isn't very good at ending things, or if I'm just obtuse.

Despite that, I still think Pérez-Reverte is a magnificent author and I didn't mind reading this again. I would certainly recommend reading The Three Musketeers first to fully enjoy the pervasive references -- if you haven't read it, you need to run, not walk, to your library or bookstore ASAP because there's just no excuse for that!

As a side note, I'd appreciate any recommendations that are in a similar vein (books about books, especially mysteries or thrillers), and if anyone knows what book I was referring to in my first paragraph with the guy in the burning library (it also featured collectors of occult books), I'd love it if you refreshed my memory about its title.