#1 International Bestseller "A thriller of marvelous intricacy."—The New York Times Book ReviewLucas Corso 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’ The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. He 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’ masterpiece."Erudite, funny, loopy, brilliant . . . action-adventure spiced with dollops of idiosyncrasy—and some very good talk."—The Philadelphia Inquirer"A noir metafiction . . . Even a reader armed with a Latin dictionary and a copy of The Three Musketeers cannot anticipate the thrilling twists of this stylish, Escher-like mystery."—The New Yorker Arturo Perez-Reverte is the internationally best-selling author of CAPTAIN ALATRISTE.  His books have been translated into twenty-nine languages in more than fifty countries and have sold millions of copies worldwide.  He lives in Spain and was elected to the Spanish Royal Academy in 2003.